Cases and deaths rise in Berks County
County seeing greater share of state positives recently
Berks County coronavirus COVID-19 cases and deaths have taken another step up in state Department of Health reporting on Tuesday.
According to the state, Berks added 97 cases for an outbreak total of 1,247, and six deaths for an outbreak total of 27.
The state reports based on calendar days, so the results are through Monday. The county coroner’s office reported 35 deaths through Monday.
The coroner’s total included four deaths of non-Berks residents, which the state won’t count against Berks, but there’s another four more unaccounted for and the discrepancy between the death totals grows.
On Tuesday afternoon the coroner’s office reported four more deaths. The office reports once during the afternoon with all the new cases it has accumulated through the previous 24 hours.
According to the coroner, those new deaths were:
• A 91-year-old Berks man who died at his residence on Monday. He was previously tested and the results were positive.
• A 75-year-old Berks man who died at his residence on Tuesday. He was previously tested and the results were positive.
• A 77-year-old Berks man who died at his residence on Tuesday. He was previously tested and the results were positive.
• A 30-year-old Berks man who died at his residence on Friday. Because of “symptoms and sick contacts” the coroner’s office conducted a field test and those results returned as positive on Tuesday.
The family of the 30-year-old, by far the youngest death in Berks, contacted the Reading Eagle and identified their loved one as Liborio Lara, who lived in Reading. The family members said they want to speak about Lara and his battle with the virus.
Penn State Health St. Joseph has expanded its online dashboard for COVID-19.
On Tuesday, it listed 22 patients hospitalized and four cases under investigation. The facility has discharged 13 patients during the outbreak and there have been two deaths.
Reading Hospital doesn’t make such updates available.
Berks County’s share of the state positives has been rising for the past five days.
Nate Wardle, department of health spokesman, said this Tuesday: “We can’t say for sure why numbers in Berks County would be going up at a much higher rate than the rest of the state. We are starting to see case counts increase in other parts of the state, outside what we had been seeing primarily in the SE and NE.
“Fewer positives means that our social distancing and mitigation efforts are working, first. It could also mean that there is fewer need for testing, that fewer tests are available, or any number of factors. We really need a continued trend of positives to know that our case count has plateaued.”
Lehigh Valley Hospital has revised its testing criteria, reducing the total number of tests, saying: “Only symptomatic persons ages 65 and over, symptomatic persons at a higher risk of complications and other defined symptomatic at-risk persons will be tested for COVID-19.
“The new testing criteria was recommended in light of continued regional and national shortages of COVID-19 test kits and other testing supplies. Symptomatic persons at a higher risk of complications include those with chronic lung disease and asthma, significant heart