Allegheny COVID-19 case counts decline
The Allegheny County Health Department on Thursday reported 1,421 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past week, a decline from last week’s 1,461.
With many people using home tests, the official case count may not reflect the true presence of the virus, but other metrics such as hospitalizations and deaths are also holding steady.
There were 97 people reported hospitalized with COVID-19 this week, which is in line with the numbers from the past few weeks. The county reported nine deaths, and Allegheny County’s community level as of Thursday afternoon was low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Community levels are determined by the number of new hospital admissions, inpatient beds being used by COVID-19 patients and new cases in the past seven days.
The county has fluctuated between low and medium community levels in recent weeks; this is the second week in a row that it has remained low.
The CDC, which labels county-level transmission levels as “low,” “medium” and “high,” uses the metric to inform communities of the potential need for preventive measures, such as masking, vaccinations, ventilation, testing and isolation.
In some European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, cases have been on the rise in September, while infections in the U.S. have dropped, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
But the United States has echoed the pattern in Europe in the past two years, with cold weather months bringing a rise in infections. The surge caused by the omicron variant last winter sent U.S. cases to an all-time peak in January.
Dr. Kristen Mertz, an epidemiologist with the Allegheny
County Health Department, said the agency is monitoring the increased virus rates in Europe and said our region may start to see cases rise in October.
Earlier this month, the CDC approved the updated COVID-19 booster shots that provide more protection against the highly contagious omicron strain and its BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. And on Monday, Pfizer asked U. S. regulators to expand the use of its updated COVID-19 booster shot to children ages 5 to 11.
“I would encourage everyone to make sure they are up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines and, if eligible, take advantage of the new bivalent booster shot that protects against the original strain of the virus, as well as BA.4 and BA.5,” Dr. Mertz wrote in a statement.