State surpasses 115,000 cases

The Pennsylvania Health Department on Tuesday said there are 854 more cases of the coronavirus in the state, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 115,009.

The figure includes 33 more cases in the Lehigh Valley. Eighteen of those are in Lehigh County and 15 in Northampton County.

The state added 23 deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 7,232.

No new deaths were reported in the Lehigh Valley. There have been 335 deaths in Lehigh County and 290 in Northampton County. The state’s main COVID-19 website showed 656 people were hospitalized for the virus late Tuesday morning. This was 12% higher than the 585 figure of mid-afternoon Monday.

However, the state acknowledged Monday that a few days earlier, it made “a big change” in how hospitals report COVID-19 patient counts to government, going from one database to another. A Health Department spokesman said Tuesday that the change means some hospitals will have to make sure their data is accurate, and the hospitalization figures could be affected by that process.

State data showed more than 41% of the people hospitalized late Tuesday morning are in Philadelphia, which had 136 patients, or Allegheny County, which had 138.

In Lehigh County, 43 people are hospitalized for the virus, and in Northampton County, four people are hospitalized.

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Ford Turner