With over 18,000 new covid cases, Pennsylvania nears 500K mark

Health officials reported Monday there were 18,646 new cases of covid-19 in Pennsylvania over the past two days.

The Department of Health reported 10,684 of those cases Sunday and 7,962 on Monday.

The new cases bring the state’s seven-day average of daily cases to 10,474, while its seven-day case total was up to 73,320. Both are record highs.

The statewide positivity rate for the week of Dec. 4-10 was 16.2%.

With 499,764 cases of coronavirus to date, Pennsylvania will almost certainly surpass the 500,000 cases mark on Tuesday.

There were 9,839 cases confirmed through PCR tests in Sunday’s report, while 7,772 of Monday’s cases were confirmed.

Health officials said 184 more covid-related deaths were reported over the past two days — 129 on Sunday, 55 on Monday. Of the new deaths, all but six were from December, the others were from November.

To date, 12,620 people have died of covid-related illness in the state.

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, there are currently 6,026 Pennsylvanians hospitalized for covid, with 1,249 in intensive care units across the commonwealth. Of those, 697 are on ventilators. Officials report 35% of the state’s ventilators are being used for all illnesses.

In the state’s 1,403 nursing and personal care homes, there have been 44,081 resident cases of covid-19, with 7,992 cases among employees. About 16,705 of the state’s total coronavirus cases are among health care workers.

Officials point out that most of the patients hospitalized are age 65 or older, and most of the deaths have occurred in patients 65 or older.

Since the pandemic began in March, 3,060,689 individuals taking PCR tests have been recorded as negative.