Pa. breaks daily case record; more schools going remote
Pennsylvania again saw new COVID-19 cases reach a one-day high on Friday, and the prevalence of the disease continues to force school districts to switch to or stay with remote learning, some well into the new year.
Statewide, new cases of COVID19 grew by 11,763, which brings the state’s total up to 398,600, according to the latest Health Department figures. Deaths climbed by 169 for a total of 11,113 people dead after contracting the virus.
Allegheny County on Friday reported 911 new COVID-19 cases, its second highest one-day total, and 26 additional deaths, its highest one-day total since the pandemic began.
Westmoreland County reached a record-high case count for the second day in a row with 412 new cases, bringing that county’s total to more than 10,400 cases overall.
In the past two days, several school districts, citing the number of cases in their buildings or in their communities, announced they would stay or go completely remote through December.
Shaler Area, Gateway and Big Beaver Falls will not try to return until Jan. 4. North Hills will stay remote through Jan. 8. And Mount Pleasant will be remote until Jan. 21.
They joined at least 10 other districts in the region that will teach remotely until Jan. 4. Some others that have gone totally virtual hope to return to classrooms or at least a hybrid model later this month, while others have not announced a return date.
The announcements come as infections in Allegheny County now total 31,454 cases since the pandemic started in March.
Of the new positive cases, 830 were confirmed from 2,794 new PCR tests, and 81 are probable cases. The positive tests were taken from Oct. 8 to Dec. 3 (33 of the positive tests were more than a week old), officials said. Those recently contracting the virus range in age from 1 month to 100 years, with a median age of 43.
Of the 26 new deaths, two people were in their 50s, two were in their 60s, five in their 70s, and six people were in their 80s. Eleven of them were in their 90s. A total of 16 deaths were associated with long-term care facilities. The deaths occurred from Nov. 18 to Dec. 3.
people were in their 80s. Eleven of them were in their 90s. A total of 16 deaths were associated with longterm care facilities. The deaths occurred from Nov. 18 to Dec. 3.
The death toll in the county now stands at 570 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The new cases continue a trend of 500-plus daily increases stretching back to mid-November. Allegheny County set a new record on Thursday with 1,028 additional cases.
As the infections increase, hospitalizations continue to spike in southwest Pennsylvania with state and local health officials warning of impending staffing shortages in the next week.
As of Friday, there were 49 more hospitalizations in Allegheny alone and a total of about 5,230 statewide, according to the latest data.
State Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine on Thursday warned that the southwest and southcentral regions of the commonwealth have activated a staffing trigger on the Health Department’s COVID-19 dashboard, with the department reporting 33.3% of southwestern and 47.8% of southcentral hospitals expected to fall short of staff.
The southwest region Health Care Coalition includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Mercer, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland counties.