State: Increasing number of Luzerne County residents hospitalized for virus

An average daily 62.4 Luzerne County residents were hospitalized for coronavirus this past week, the state’s early warning update released Friday shows.

This number has been steadily rising.

The county’s daily average hospitalizations were 47.1 the previous week, from Oct. 23 to 29, and 38.4 the week before that.

In comparison, there were 6.6 daily hospitalizations the week of Oct. 2 to 8 and 16.3 hospitalizations from Oct. 9 to Oct. 15.

Confirmed cases also continue to increase in the county, according to the update posted at www.health.pa.gov.

The county added 441 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last week ending Thursday — an increase of 20 from the previous week’s 421 new cases, the update says.

As a result, the county’s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, rose from 132.5 two weeks ago to a current 138.8, it said.

Also rising was the county’s positivity rate, or percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, which jumped from 7.6% to 7.9%.

Based on the latest numbers, county school districts will remain in the highest classification of “substantial” community transmission in which remote-only learning is recommended by the state. This level is reached when the incidence rate is 100 or above or the positivity rate is 10% or higher.

Twenty-six counties were in the substantial level this week, prompting the state health and education departments to speak with their school districts about implications, a state release said.

In addition to Luzerne, the other counties in the substantial category were Armstrong, Berks, Blair, Bradford, Cambria, Centre, Crawford, Dauphin, Delaware, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Mifflin, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Tioga, Venango, Westmoreland, Wyoming and York.

There are 36 counties in the “moderate” virus spread ranking, which means their districts were advised to avoid full in-person instruction.

To advance to the “low” spread ranking, counties must have both fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period and a positivity rate below 5%, the state has said. Districts in counties ranked as “low” transmission should consider full in-person instruction or a blended system, with some students in school while others learn remotely at home, the state said.

The five counties in the low level: Cameron, Forest, Sullivan, Warren and Wayne.

Two other statistics are reported in the dashboard:

• The average daily number of patients on ventilators increased from 3.6 to 5.7 in Luzerne County over the two-week period.

• The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses decreased from 0.8% to 0.7%.

Statewide numbers

Pennsylvania also experienced a rise in cases, the latest update said.

There were 15,989 additional cases statewide in the week ending Thursday, or 2,503 more than the prior week’s 13,486.

With that increase, the statewide cases per 100,000 rose from 105.3 to 124.8. The state’s positivity rate increased from 6.1% to 6.9% in the latest week.

Other statewide benchmark updates:

• Average daily hospitalizations rose from 1,166.9 to 1,431.7.

• The daily average number of patients on ventilators increased from 118.7 to 133.3.

• The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses statewide remained the same — 0.9%.