COVID-19 cases in state surge

1,268 more than in previous week

COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania this week increased by 1,268 compared to the week prior as hospitalizations and positivity rates went up.

With 27,592 infections between Oct.1-7, COVID-19 cases are trending upward after a slight dip last week, according to the state Department of Health’s Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard. This comes as the positivity rate went to 9.6% from 9%, meaning a greater share of people tested for the virus received positive results.

Hospitalizations also went up this week, with the average number of COVID-19 specific hospitalizations reaching 2,878.9, up almost 118 from the prior seven-day period, and more of those patients — a daily average of 383 — are on ventilators.

On Friday, there were 2,930 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the DOH reported, with 680 of them were in intensive care units. Cases also went up by 5,583, making for a total of 1,469,847 in Pennsylvania to date.

There were 93 new deaths attributed to COVID-19 on Friday, and a total of 29,907 people have died from the virus in the state.

In Allegheny County, there were 521 new cases reported by the county Health Department on Friday. No new deaths were reported for the second day in a row.

The county has reported 124,223 cases of COVID-19 in residents since March 2020, leading to 8,432 hospitalizations and 2,197 deaths.

Statewide vaccinations made modest increases in the past seven days. On Oct. 1, the state DOH reported 6.2 million people were fully vaccinated and 12.7 million total doses administered, with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines requiring at least two doses. The moving average at that time was 17,200 people per day receiving vaccinations.

Friday saw a total of over 13 million doses administered with more than 26,000 people per day getting a shot, and Thursday alone saw 45,318 jabs. But just 6,264,513 of the state’s 13 million residents have been fully vaccinated, and children aged 5 to 11 are still unauthorized to receive any form of the vaccine.

That could change if government regulators give the go ahead to Pfizer to allow its vaccines to be used in younger children, but those shots may not be available until at least November.