Pennsylvania adds over 6,300 new covid cases in 2 days

Since Saturday, Pennsylvania has added more than 6,300 new cases of coronavirus, the state’s Department of Health said Monday.

On Sunday and Monday, there were 6,311 new cases of covid-19 — 2,909 on Sunday, 3,402 on Monday — making for 22,300 new cases in the past week.

Since the beginning of October, the state’s seven-day new case total has risen 230%. On Oct. 1, the seven-day total was 6,726.

Of the new cases, 5,700 were confirmed through PCR tests — 2,705 on Sunday, 2,995 on Monday. Among the new batch of PCR tests, nearly 16% came back positive.

The state also announced nine new deaths — eight from November, one from October — with five of them added Sunday, four on Monday.

While health officials have frequently said weekend reporting numbers tend to be lower, it is worth noting that over the past month, the state’s Sunday-Monday death numbers are down — from 24 on Oct. 11-12, 34 on Oct. 18-19 and 19 on Oct. 25-26. Last week, the state posted 11 deaths on Nov. 1-2.

“It is quite clear that covid-19 cases are occurring throughout our communities,” Gov. Tom Wolf said in a press release Monday. “We need all Pennsylvanians to take a stand and answer the call to protect one another. We need Pennsylvanians to be united in wearing a mask, practicing social distancing, washing our hands and avoiding gatherings. It is only by working together that Pennsylvanians can prevent the spread of the virus.”

On Monday, health officials released their weekly status update on the state’s Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard.

The release included a list of counties of concern because of their recent increasing positivity rates. Western Pennsylvania counties on the list included Indiana, Armstrong, Butler, Washington, Clarion and Westmoreland. Officials said each of the counties and “the state as a whole bears watching as the state continues to monitor all available data.”

In the past week, 11 counties saw more than 500 new cases of covid. Leading all of them, by far, was Philadelphia County with 3,189 cases. The remaining counties were Allegheny (1,446), Montgomery (1,031), Delaware (1,013), Bucks (840), Lancaster (787), Lehigh (630), Berks (587), Chester (516), York (507) and Westmoreland (503).

To date, there have been 5,629 individuals who have a positive viral antigen test — and thus recorded as probable cases — and 645 individuals with a positive serology test and either covid-19 symptoms or a high-risk exposure.

In the state’s 1,115 distinct nursing and personal care homes in 63 counties, there have been 27,729 resident cases of covid-19, with 5,879 cases among employees. About 12,975 of Pennsylvania’s total covid cases have occurred among health care workers.

According to the state’s covid-19 tracking website, there are 1,827 Pennsylvanians currently hospitalized with the virus, with 353 patients in an intensive care unit and 179 of them on ventilators. Officials report there are 5,053 operational ventilators in the state, with 1,198 (24%) currently in use for all illnesses. Health officials said the majority hospitalized patients are age 65 or older.

Since the pandemic began in March, Pennsylvania has recorded 234,296 total cases — confirmed and probable. There have been a total of 9,024 covid-related deaths recorded.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the nine deaths from Sunday and Monday were not all from November.