Montco death toll rises to 189
EAGLEVILLE » As week seven of the coronavirus outbreak in Montgomery County came to a close on Friday, officials reported 10 more deaths from the virus and said the county has “a long, long way to go” before it can meet the governor’s detailed plan for reopening the region.
The 10 deaths bring the county’s death toll to 189 since March 7 when the first two cases of the virus were identified in the county. Saturday will mark the beginning of the eighth week of the outbreak in the county.
The 10 residents ranged between 50- and 89-years-old. To date, 94 women and 95 men have died from the virus in the county. Officials said the racial breakdown for those that have died included: 11 Asian; two Asian Indian; three Asian Korean; 23 African American; and 73 white.
Information about the ethnicity of the remaining 77 individuals was unavailable.
Those 189 total deaths were “confirmed positive” COVID-19 cases through the use of lab tests, officials explained.
Officials also reported that as of Friday, 96 other deaths in the county have been listed as “probable” COVID-19 deaths.
“These are deaths where there was not laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 but whoever signed the death certificate felt the clinical situation was such that they probably died of COVID-19,” county Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh explained during a Friday news briefing at the county Emergency Operation Center.
Officials also reported 171 new positive cases of the virus on Friday, bringing the county’s total number of cases to 3,383 since March 7. The new positive individuals were residents of 41 municipalities. To date, 61 of the county’s 62 municipalities are home to individuals with COVID-19. Bryn Athyn is the only municipality that has not reported a case of the virus.
The new positive cases included 78 males and 93 females whose ages ranged from 16 to 98. Fifteen of the individuals are hospitalized, officials said.
Arkoosh said county officials have reviewed Gov. Tom Wolf’s detailed plan for reopening Pennsylvania, which was unveiled earlier this week.
Wolf drafted a color-coded plan to reopen the state, which will be conducted in phases. Wolf has said if Southeast Pennsylvania continues to have a higher number of positive COVID-19 cases, then reopening there will be slower than in places where the case counts have been low.
Under the plan, to determine when a region is ready to reopen and return to work, the state will evaluate the incidence rate of COVID-19 cases per capita, relying upon existing regional health districts used by the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Specifically, a regional assessment will measure the COVID-19 cases to determine if the target goal of an average of less than 50 cases per 100,000 individuals over the course of 14 days is met.
The county, which has a population of about 830,915, recorded 2,612 cases of the virus over the last 14 days, meaning the county has a current daily average of 187 cases, according to the statistics, or more than three times the benchmark to reopen.
In order to meet the governor’s target of less than 50 cases per 100,000 people, the county would have to see a reduction to 415 cases over 14 days, for a daily average of 30 cases.
“It’s not a one-day snapshot. It’s the cumulative number over 14 days. We’ve got a long, long way to go here. So please do your best to stay home,” explained Arkoosh, continuing to emphasize the social distancing mitigation measures that health officials say can stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The county is currently in the red phase of Wolf’s plan, which mandates that only life sustaining businesses can be open, large gatherings are prohibited and there is a stay-at-home order in place. Arkoosh said for the county to move to the next relaxed phase, the yellow phase, a number of other things also must be in place.
“One is that our hospitalization utilization rates are going down so that there are plenty of beds available and that there’s personal protective equipment for our hospital employees and enough ventilators, just in case if in relaxing (measures) we see another surge of patients,” Arkoosh explained, adding contact tracing must be in place and there must be enough testing available for specific individuals.
Arkoosh said the reopen plan also will be “a regional exercise.”
“That is critically important, because we all know this virus doesn’t care about any borders and we know that our workforces travel back and forth between counties. This will be viewed by the governor and his team…as a region,” said Arkoosh, who was joined at the Friday news briefing by fellow commissioners Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr. and Joseph C. Gale and Dr. Alvin Wang, regional EMS medical director, and Dr. Brenda Weis, administrator of the Office of Public Health.
Arkoosh said hospitals in the county currently do have open beds in regular units and intensive care units and do have ventilators available.
County officials continue to monitor coronavirus data from the 75 long-term care facilities in the county that are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health as well as from “other congregate care settings that have overnight services” in the county, for a total of about 620 facilities.
As of Friday, 89 of the facilities reported positive COVID-19 cases among residents and staff. Specifically, officials reported there are 837 cases among residents of the facilities and 367 cases among staff at the facilities, for a total of 1,204 positive individuals. Officials pointed out that not all of the individuals are from Montgomery County and that some came from other areas of the region.
Arkoosh added 138 of the county’s total 189 “confirmed positive” COVID-19 deaths were county residents who had been living at a long-term care facility, representing about 73-percent of the total “confirmed positive” deaths.
Officials also identified 65 COVID-19 “probable deaths” of county residents who were in a long-term care facility.
The long-term care facilities where the deaths occurred were not identified. But Arkoosh said county officials have been visiting some of the facilities and offering guidance during the pandemic.
“We are recommending to any facility that we enter to please consider testing every single resident and every single staff person to help get a better handle on what is going on in the facility,” Arkoosh said.
Officials estimated that as of Friday about 2-percent of the county’s population had been tested for the virus, including those who were tested at hospitals and at the county’s communitybased testing sites.
The community based drive-thru testing site that opened last week at the central campus of the Montgomery County Community College in Whitpain will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. The site will be closed on Sunday and will reopen on Monday.
As of April 21, a total of 1,551 people were tested at the site and officials have received results for 1,288 of the individuals, which represents about 83-percent of those tested. Officials said 182 of the individuals, or 14-percent, tested positive. That’s a decrease from a peak positive rate of 24-percent that officials reported around April 5.
Registration for each day’s appointments will open at 8 a.m. daily and will remain open until all available spots are filled. Individuals can register online at www.montcopa.org/COVID-19
Individuals who do not have access to the internet or do not have an email address will be able to call 610-631-3000 to register for a testing appointment.
A walk-up community based testing site also is available for Norristown residents on the parking lot of the Norristown Regional Health Center, 1401 DeKalb St. The free testing is provided by appointment only from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday through Friday. Officials stressed the site is a walk-up operation and a vehicle will not be required.
Norristown residents can register for testing by calling 610-592-0680 starting at 8:30 a.m. daily. Information regarding how many people have been tested at that site was not available on Friday.
“It’s not a one-day snapshot. It’s the cumulative number over 14 days. We’ve got a long, long way to go here. So please do your best to stay home.”
- Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh