349 deaths and 7,960 additional cases reported Wednesday
The state Health Department reported 349 COVID-related deaths Wednesday, the second-highest daily toll of the new year after the 368 deaths reported a week ago.
More than 2,400 people died in Pennsylvania in less than two weeks. The nation added its highest one-day COVID-19 death toll Tuesday with 4,453 recorded, bringing the total to almost 381,000, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
There were 16 new deaths reported in Lehigh County and eight in Northampton County. A total of 1,073 Valley residents have died during the pandemic — 139 of them so far this month, accounting for 13% of the Valley’s total COVID deaths.
There are 9,793 deaths in residents of Pennsylvania senior living facilities, accounting for about 53% of the state’s deaths.
The report included an additional 7,960 coronavirus infections Wednesday, a number now under the seven-day moving average of newly reported cases following the post-holiday surge. The seven-day moving average was 8,286 on Wednesday, up 11% from 7,437 a week ago.
Pennsylvania is adding cases at about 10 times the rate of the start of the pandemic. It added over 101,000 cases in the first 13 days of the year, while it took 134 days to accumulate the first 100,000 cases. There have been 741,389 cases reported in Pennsylvania to date.
Carbon and Schuylkill counties continue to outpace the Lehigh Valley in the seven-day average of additional cases per 100,000 population per day, with rates of 120 per 100,000 for Carbon, 94 for Schuylkill, 92 in Lehigh, and 81 per 100,000 in Northampton.
While deaths and case counts remain high, hospitalizations statewide are slowly decreasing. There were 5,069 people hospitalized at midday Wednesday because of COVID-19, 460 of them in Lehigh Valley hospitals. The total is down about 25% from its mid-December record. There were 1,035 patients in intensive care Wednesday, 73 in the Valley, and 645 on ventilators, with 54 of those in Valley hospitals.
There were 19,227 test results reported Wednesday, with 31% of them positive, compared to 34% on Tuesday. The overall positive test rate is 16.1% since the state’s first cases were reported March 6.
Vaccinations
Pennsylvania is officially in Phase 1A of its vaccination rollout plan, meaning that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna-NIH vaccines are available to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. Phase 1B will include everyone over the age of 74 as well as front-line workers such as people working for the U.S. Postal Service or in manufacturing, agriculture, grocery stores, child care or public transit, as well as members of the clergy.
The state’s vaccine dashboard shows that 385,222 doses have been administered so far, not including Philadelphia, which has a separate program and dose allotments. The total also excludes people in federal facilities such as prisons or veterans’ hospitals.
Of that total, almost 300,000 people have received only the first dose of either vaccine. More than 42,000 have received two doses. Maximum immunity is achieved about 10 days after the second dose.
The totals for the Lehigh Valley are 36,748 total doses administered to 32,677 people in both counties, with 4,071 people having gotten both doses.