Allegheny, Westmoreland, report the highest total new secret cases since January

Allegheny and Westmoreland counties on Saturday saw their highest new number of suspected cases since mid-January.

Allegheny County recorded 653 cases, the largest since 670 on January 13, while Westmoreland’s 214 additional cases were the largest since 277 on the same day in January.

The 5,343 new coronavirus cases from Pennsylvania are the highest since January 29, when 9,643 cases were reported. Saturday’s total for the state may have been even higher because the Philadelphia case data has not been updated.

The new cases in Allegheny raise the total for that county to 87,101, the second largest in the state, behind only Philadelphia.

Westmoreland rose to 29,609, and Pennsylvania rose to 1,038,749.

Allegheny’s new cases (653) remained significantly higher than his 7-day average of 412 new cases per day.

Westmoreland’s seven-day average has grown to 120, and Pennsylvania’s has risen to 4,171.

Allegheny had the highest number of cases in the state with 653, followed by Montgomery (372), Bucks (364), Berks (334) and Lancaster (249). Philadelphia, the state’s most populous county and generally among the new cases with the highest number of cases, had no new data reported on Saturday.

In the region, Allegheny and Westmoreland joined Washington with more than 100 additional cases.

Here is a look at the totals for the region, with the change from Friday:

• Armstrong: 5,224 (+17)

• Beaver: 13,383 (+68)

• Butler: 15,451 (+80)

• Fayette: 11,352 (+73)

• Indian: 5,416 (+20)

• Somerset: 7,013 (+30)

• Washington: 15,345 (+102)

Deaths

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 40 additional deaths on Saturday, four in April and 36 in March. The state total rose to 25,188.

The Allegheny County Health Department added two deaths, with a total of 1,792. Both deaths occurred in March, with one associated with a long-term care facility. The state health department added a death to Allegheny County, with the state total for 1,821 county. The discrepancy between health departments was attributed to different reporting methods.

Westmoreland added a death and his total rose to 707.

In the region, Fayette, Indiana and Washington also added one death each.

Hospitalizations

Covid hospitalizations increased slightly in the state, from 16 to 2,187. There are 422 ICU patients across the state, with 207 on ventilators.

Hospitalizations in Allegheny County increased from six to 239, with 64 patients in an ICU and 22 in ventilators.

In Westmoreland, hospitalizations remained stable at 22, with four in the ICU and two requiring ventilators.

The state health department has yet to explain the data error that caused Westmoreland County hospitalizations to suddenly drop from 117 on March 17 to 26 on March 18.

Vaccines

More than 2.2 million people in the state have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the state health department and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Allegheny County has 232,245 people fully vaccinated, which is equivalent to almost 19% of the population. Another 217,166 in the municipality are partially vaccinated.

In Westmoreland County, the number of vaccinees exceeded 60,000, which corresponds to 16.6% of the county. More than 50,000 received the first of two shots.