The Mercury (Pottstown, PA)

Montco reports 5 more COVID-19 deaths

- By Carl Hessler Jr. chessler@21st-centurymed­ia. com @montcocour­tnews on Twitter

NORRISTOWN » Montgomery County officials on Wednesday reported five more coronaviru­s deaths and more than three dozen new positive cases of the virus.

The five most recent deaths included three women and two men who ranged in age from 43 to 91. One of the individual­s lived in a long-term care facility. The five deaths bring the county’s death toll to 790 since the pandemic began in March. To date, 416 females and 374 males have died from the virus.

According to county data, 657 of the total 790 deaths involved individual­s who resided in longterm care facilities.

The 790 total deaths were “confirmed positive” COVID-19 cases through the use of lab tests.

Earlier this week, officials said 88 other deaths in the county have been listed as “probable” COVID-19 deaths. Those are deaths that list COVID-19 as a cause of death on a death certificat­e but in which there was no laboratory confirmati­on of the virus.

Additional­ly, officials reported 38 new positive cases of the coronaviru­s on Wednesday, which brings the county’s total number of cases to 8,105 since March 7 when the first two cases of the virus were identified in the county. The individual­s, 21 females and 17 males, ranged in age from 18 to 95 and they resided in 18 municipali­ties, officials reported.

“As the coronaviru­s continues to remain in our community, each of us must be personally responsibl­e for our actions and work together to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in Montgomery County,” county Commission­ers’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said on Wednesday.

Testing for anyone who needs or wants to be tested continues to be available at the county’s community-based testing sites in Pottstown, Norristown and Whitpain.

A walk-up testing site is available at the county’s Office of Public Health Pottstown Health Center at 364 King St. Testing is available Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. by appointmen­t only. To make an appointmen­t, residents should call 610970-2937 beginning at 8:30 a.m. daily.

A walk-up communityb­ased testing site also is located on the parking lot of the Delaware Valley Community Health Norristown Regional Health

Center, 1401 DeKalb St., in Norristown. Testing is provided by appointmen­t only from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday through Friday and is open to Norristown residents and all establishe­d patients of the Delaware Valley Community

Health Center regardless of where they reside. Residents can register for testing by calling 610-592-0680 starting at 8:30 a.m. daily.

A drive-thru testing site at the central campus of the Montgomery County Community College in Whitpain will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as testing supplies allow. 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 or can call 610-631-3000 to register for a testing appointmen­t.

Informatio­n about additional testing sites, including pharmacies, many of which operate over the weekend, can be found at www.montcopa.org/COVID-19 under the “County Testing Informatio­n” button.

“As the coronaviru­s continues to remain in our community, each of us must be personally responsibl­e for our actions and work together to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in Montgomery County.” - Montgomery County Commission­er Dr. Valerie Arkoosh

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