Westmoreland County adds 666 new covid cases over 2 days

Officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Health said there were 666 new cases of covid-19 in Westmoreland County over the past two days.

Monday’s report from the department said 371 new cases were added Sunday, 285 confirmed through PCR tests. Of Monday’s 295 new cases, all were confirmed.

Westmoreland County’s seven-day average of daily cases increased to 407, while the seven-day case total went to 2,846. Both are record highs.

As usual, the weekend case numbers declined a bit from the highs seen late last week. However, Sunday’s and Monday’s numbers were up about 28% from this time last week. To date, there have been 14,260 total cases of coronavirus in the county.

Officials also added five new covid-related deaths over the past two days — one on Sunday, four on Monday. In total, 294 county residents have died from the virus.

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, there are currently 157 county residents hospitalized for covid, with 24 in intensive care units. Of those, 17 are on ventilators. Officials report 30% of the county’s available ventilators are being used for all illnesses.

Only 12% of the county’s adult hospital beds are currently available to new patients, and 29% of ICU beds are open.

Since Dec. 1, hospitalizations for covid have increased 47%.

Since the pandemic began in March, 68,638 county residents have tested negative for the virus.