Pennsylvania posts 4th highest single-day covid-related death report

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported another 8,984 coronavirus cases Wednesday. Despite the high number, it actually brought the state’s seven-day average of new cases down more than 18% from a week ago.

A week ago, Pennsylvania’s seven-day average of new cases was 8,827. With Wednesday’s report, that average dropped to 7,168 — the lowest since Dec. 2, when it was 6,800.

That positive news was tempered by the 319 new covid-related deaths health officials announced Wednesday. That brings the state total of virus deaths to 15,672, a 48% increase since the beginning of December.

Of those newly reported deaths, 317 were from December, two were from November.

The number of deaths reported Wednesday was the fourth highest single-day total since the pandemic began in March. Of all deaths, 8,849 have occurred in residents from nursing or personal care facilities.

In the state’s 1,468 nursing and personal care homes, there have been 52,642 resident cases and 9,587 cases among employees. About 19,044 of the state’s total covid cases have been among health care workers.

Pennsylvania hospitals began receiving shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccine the week of Dec. 14 and the Moderna vaccine the week of Dec. 21.

Through Dec. 30, there have been 96,045 doses of the vaccine administered to state residents.

With 709 new cases, Philadelphia was the county with the highest report of new cases. It was followed by Delaware (633), Allegheny (525), Montgomery (506) and Bucks (409).

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, there are 5,962 state residents currently hospitalized for the virus, with 1,178 of them in the intensive care unit and 681 on respirators. The average number of covid patients in hospitals across the state has dropped nearly 3% since one week ago.

Since the pandemic began in March, Pennsylvania health officials has recorded 631,333 covid-19 cases, with 3,254,297 individuals testing negative.