Levine promotes vaccinations to avert ‘secondary health crisis’
State Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine urged Pennsylvanians Thursday to continue getting routine vaccinations for their children in order to avoid a “secondary health crisis.” Meanwhile, the COVID-19 death toll spiked again, increasing by 275 and bringing the total over 4,000.
“Unlike COVID-19, infectious diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox [and] polio already have reliable, effective and safe vaccines,” Dr. Levine said, noting maintaining a normal vaccination schedule is required for students to go to school in the fall and that vaccines protect the entire community, including those unable to be vaccinated due to medical conditions.
The secretary, a pediatrician by training, acknowledged parents may be apprehensive about bringing their children to the doctor’s office during the pandemic.
“We know that during the stay-at-home orders, people have not been going to the ‘well’ child visits,” Dr. Levine said.
She said pediatricians have made changes to their operations, including scheduling “sick” and “well” visits at different times of the day and separating patients in the office.
Health department spokesperson Maggi Mumma said in an emailed statement that the ongoing reconciliation between different data systems accounts for 231 of the newly reported deaths, which took place over the past several weeks. The count would have increased by 44 without the reconciliation.
The statewide death total is 4,218. Of the 275 new deaths reported, 191 of them
— nearly 70% — were in long-term care living facilities. The department also reported 938 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 59,636.
Five of the new deaths were in Western Pennsylvania — four in Beaver County and one in Erie. All of the Beaver deaths occurred at a nursing home, according to the state data.
Allegheny County reported no new deaths from COVID-19 and six new cases. However, the county separately updated its figures for the Kane Community Living Centers and reported two new deaths at the Glen Hazel home, bringing that facility’s total to 18.
None of the Kane sites other than Glen Hazel have reported a death.
With the new figures, Allegheny has a total of 1,551 cases of COVID-19 — 1,474 confirmed and 77 probable — since the first case was reported March 14. The death toll is now 139, 129 confirmed and 10 probable.
The county said 283 people, past or present, have required hospitalization. There have been at least 117 people admitted to an intensive care unit, and 67 of them have required mechanical ventilation. So far, there have been at least 21,488 tests administered.
Statewide, Dr. Levine said that 4,217 cases have been in health care workers and 12,677 have been in long-term care facility residents. She also said that the department is working on providing an estimate for the numbers of recovered patients.
The secretary said that the counties that had opened into the yellow phase thus far — 24 mostly rural counties in the northwest and north-central regions of the state — had not seen any concerning spikes in cases. She also said that the department is monitoring the situation in Lycoming County, which in recent days has seen enough new cases that it was pushed back above the 50 new cases per 100,000 population in 14 days threshold, but that the county is not in danger of regressing to the red stage at this time.
On Thursday afternoon, country music star Kenny Chesney announced that his concert, scheduled for May 30 at Heinz Field, would be postponed to an undetermined later date. When asked about the concert earlier in the day, Dr. Levine said that she recommended it not take place.
“My recommendation is not to have large events in yellow zones,” Dr. Levine said, citing a concern that the concert could be an opportunity for community spread.
Here are the positive cases reported Thursday across Western Pennsylvania:
• Allegheny: 1,551 (up 6 from Wednesday)
• Armstrong: 56 (no change)
• Beaver: 512 (up 3)
• Butler: 199 (up 2)
• Cambria: 45 (no change)
• Clarion: 24 (no change)
• Clearfield: 33 (up 2)
• Crawford: 21 (no change)
• Erie: 127 (up 2)
• Fayette: 87 (up 2)
• Forest: 7 (no change)
• Greene: 27 (no change)
• Indiana: 82 (up 4)
• Jefferson: 7 (no change)
• Lawrence: 71 (no change)
• Mercer: 81 (up 3)
• Somerset: 32 (no change)
• Venango: 7 (no change)
• Washington: 129 (up 2)
• Westmoreland: 422 (up 3) For additional information, Allegheny County referred individuals to its COVID-19 Dashboard at alleghenycounty.us/HealthDepartment/resources/ COVID-19/Covid-19.aspx. More information on statewide results can be found on the Department of Health website at health.pa.gov.