• The state health department announced Friday that Western Pennsylvania’s first presumptive positive case of COVID-19 has been discovered in Washington County.

Most official cases still to the east

The state health department on Friday announced Western Pennsylvania’s first presumptive positive case of COVID-19 has been discovered in Washington County.

The patient was tested after going to a doctor for flulike symptoms, Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey Vaughan said. The patient is an adult, but the state Department of Health did not disclose any information to county officials about where the patient lives or works.

It also is unclear how the patient came in contact with the virus.

The county will begin to cut back on some public gatherings, Ms. Irey Vaughan said. County offices will remain open, but people without urgent business are asked to postpone their visits, Washington County Public Safety Director Jeffrey Yates said.

To date, there are 41 total cases of the virus in the state: 35 are presumptive positive cases, which are confirmed by the state health department but not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Six are confirmed cases.

There are no presumptive or confirmed cases in Allegheny County.

Until Friday, most official cases of the COVID-19 disease have been in the eastern part of the state, in counties like Bucks, Cumberland and Monroe. Montgomery County, located north of Philadelphia, has the most total cases at 18.

On Friday, Mayor Bill Peduto declared a state of emergency for Pittsburgh, limiting public gatherings to 250 people in an attempt to stop the virus’s spread in the region.

As of 5 p.m., the state had tested about 315 people for the virus since the outbreak began, according to numbers from the department of health. Approximately 130 of those people have results pending; around 145 people have so far been confirmed negative.

Mr. Yates said Washington County officials are focusing on keeping people educated and informed on the virus, and he urged that people should not panic or hoard supplies. The county will post updates on their website.

Washington County is directly adjacent to Allegheny County and borders West Virginia’s northern panhandle, putting it four miles from Ohio, where there have been 13 confirmed cases of COVID19 statewide as of Friday evening. There are not yet any confirmed cases of COVID-19 in West Virginia.

A national shortage of tests has made it difficult to determine the exact number of cases in the U.S. On Thursday, Ohio Department of Health director Amy Acton estimated that more than 100,000 people in Ohio have the virus.