Dallas ZIP code appears to be new COVID-19 hot spot

With Luzerne County hitting a single-day record high of 485 cases reported by the state Wednesday, where are the biggest increases? A Times Leader look at case counts by ZIP code shows the Dallas code of 18612 has become the new county hot spot, though the increase was so striking it seems possible there’s an error in the data.

A state Department of Health spokesperson confirmed the state does not archive the code data for public access, and the Times Leader does not track the data on a daily basis, so a single day comparison couldn’t be made Wednesday. But Wednesday’s new totals for 41 codes all or partially in Luzerne County were compared to data from Dec. 4.

The Dallas code had the highest increase for those 12 days: 538 new cases. By comparison, the Wilkes-Barre code of 18702 — which has held the top spot often since the Times Leader started tracking the data — had 344 new cases. The Kingston Code of 18704, also routinely in the top three or four recently, was third at 275.

The Hazleton code of 187o2 — the county’s original hot spot when the virus hit in the spring — had 256 new cases in that time.

After the initial surge of COVID-19 cases in April, the Dallas code became consistently light in new cases, usually with few to none each day. It started surging in November, hovering around 100 new cases a week and reporting 106 new cases Thanksgiving week.

According to state data, since the virus reached Pennsylvania there had been a total of 521 cases as of Dec. 4 in the 18612 code. When Wednesday’s data was released, it showed the code with a total of 1,059.

There is always a possibility of error in the state data, the Department of Health has from time to time tweaked county-level data downward when it discovered cases originally credited to one county actually were connected to a different county.

Wednesday’s report brought the total number of confirmed cases in Luzerne County to 13,883 since the pandemic began. The death count is now at 389.

The Department of Health confirmed that there were 10,049 additional positive cases of COVID-19 across Pennsylvania, bringing the statewide total to 519,369.

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Staff writer Bill O’Boyle contributed to this report.