Beaver County continues to lead PA with positive testing

Beaver County Times - 7/28/2020

Jul. 26--Beaver County continues to lead the state in the percent of people testing positive for COVID-19.

Statewide, Pennsylvania has a 4.7 percent positivity, meaning that fewer than 5 percent of COVID-19 tests administered in the previous seven days came back positive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a region that has the spread of COVID-19 under control has a percent positivity rate under 5 percent.

However, Beaver County is one of 14 counties across the state to exceed that number. In fact, the county has the highest rate in Pennsylvania at 8.7 percent for the second consecutive week. Other counties that exceed the CDC recommended rate are Armstrong, Franklin, Mercer, Allegheny, Lawrence, Chester, Philadelphia, Fayette, York, Dauphin, Delaware, Bedford and Greene counties.

"The mitigation efforts we took last week were a proactive step to get in front of the rise of cases that we are continuing to see," Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement Friday. "We know that it will take a period of time for the mitigation efforts to be reflected in the data. One thing we know for certain is that we must continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.

"We need to recommit to the simple measures of mask-wearing and social distancing to stop the spread and go back to more freedoms."

The state releases seven-day trending data for individual counties each week on its COVID-10 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard. Friday's release reflected July 17 to July 23, and compares that data to the previous seven-day period of July 10 to July 16.

In the most recent seven day time period, there were 157 new cases, compared with 112 the preceding seven days. The incidence rate jumped to 95.3 cases per 100,000 resident from 68 cases per 100,000 residents.

The number of average daily COVID-19 specific hospitalizations dropped slightly from 3.9 to 3.6, while no patients hospitalized in Beaver County continued to need a ventilator. The percent of emergency room visits related to a COVID-like illness dropped from 0.4 percent to 0.1 percent during that time period.

Data improved during the last seven day period in Lawrence County. The percent positive rate stayed steady at 6.2 percent. However, there were 41 new cases diagnosed during that time period, compared to 61 in the previous seven-day span. The incidence rate also dropped to 47.6 cases per 100,000 residents from 70.8 cases per 100,000 residents.

There was a slight increase in hospitalizations and emergency room visits in the county, according to the dashboard. Average daily number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 increased from 2.7 to 3.4, while the percent of emergency room visits due to COVID-19-like illnesses increased from 1 percent to 1.3 percent. No patients during that 14 day time period required use of a ventilator.

Allegheny County also showed significant improvement. The percent positivity dropped from 7.7 percent to 6.6 percent, while the number of new cases dropped to 1,019 from 1,412 during the previous seven-day period. The incidence rate dropped to 83.6 cases per 100,000 residents from 115.9 cases per 100,000 residents.

However, the average daily hospitalizations jumped to 168.6 from 121.7, and the average daily number of COVID patients requiring a ventilator jumped from 15 to 16. However, there was a dip in the percentage of emergency room visits related to virus symptoms from 0.8 percent to 0.6 percent.

State officials added Missouri and Wyoming to its quarantine travel recommendations. While not required, health officials suggest a 14 day quarantine when Pennsylvanians return from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.