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Luzerne County&rsquo;s coronavirus cases declined again in the latest week-to-week state dashboard comparison.
				The county had 60 new confirmed coronavirus cases from Sept. 18 to 24 &mdash; a decrease of 12 from the prior week&rsquo;s 72, according to the state health department&rsquo;s early warning dashboard update.
				As a result, the county&rsquo;s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, decreased from 22.7 to 18.9 over the two-week period, it said.
				The &ldquo;positivity rate,&rdquo; or percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, was 2% in the county, which was a reduction from previous week&rsquo;s 2.8%.
				Despite the recent improvements, county school districts will remain in the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; ranking for community transmission.
				School districts in &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; counties should avoid full in-person instruction and use either remote-only learning or a blended hybrid model, with some students in school while others learn remotely at home, the state said.
				To advance to the &ldquo;low&rdquo; virus 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 &ldquo;low&rdquo; transmission should consider full in-person instruction for all students or a blended system, the state said.
				In another dashboard benchmark, the county&rsquo;s average daily number of coronavirus hospitalizations decreased from 14.3 to 7.4.
				The two remaining measurements:
				&#8226; On average, no coronavirus patients were on a ventilator each day, compared to 0.3 the week before.
				&#8226; The county&rsquo;s hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses increased from 0.3% to 0.6%.
				State results
				Pennsylvania experienced a similar decline in the latest update.
				&ldquo;Our percent positivity and incidence rate for the Commonwealth both decreased this week, a testament to all the work Pennsylvanians are doing to unite against this virus,&rdquo; Gov. Tom Wolf said in a release Monday.
				As always, he urged residents to continue wearing masks, practicing social distancing, washing hands and avoiding large gatherings.
				There were 5,070 new confirmed cases statewide in the most recent week, or 481 less than the prior week&rsquo;s 5,551 new cases, the dashboard said.
				With that decline, the statewide cases per 100,000 decreased from 43.3 to 39.6.
				The state&rsquo;s positivity rate decreased from 3.7% to 3.2% in the latest week.
				The remaining statewide dashboard updates:
				&#8226; Average daily hospitalizations decreased from 479.4 to 427.9.
				&#8226; The daily average number of patients on ventilators dropped from 58.1 to 54.
				&#8226; The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses statewide increased from 0.6% to 0.7%.
				The dashboard is posted at <a href="https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Monitoring-Dashboard.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.health.pa.gov</a>. 
				In the Monday release, state officials flagged the following county positivity rates as concerning: Centre, 12%; Northumberland, 8.3%; Juniata, 6.8%; Indiana, 5.9%; Lebanon, 5.7%; Snyder, 5.2%; and York, 5.2%.
				The latest data reading means Luzerne County is among 47 in the &ldquo;moderate level&rdquo; regarding school reopening plans.
				Eighteen counties are in the &ldquo;low&rdquo; virus spread ranking: Cameron, Clarion, Crawford, Elk, Forest, Fulton, Huntingdon, Jefferson, McKean, Montour, Pike, Potter, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Venango, Warren and Wyoming, the release said.

Latest weekly Luzerne County coronavirus dashboard reading shows improvement