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125994879_web1_covid-by-zip-11-13-20

Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre ZIP codes report 100-plus new COVID-19 cases this week

The number of Luzerne County residents hospitalized and on ventilators due to coronavirus rose again this week, according to the state&rsquo;s early warning update released Friday.
				An average 71.3 county residents were hospitalized for coronavirus daily in the week ending Thursday, compared to 62.4 the week of Oct. 30 to Nov. 5, it shows.
				County hospitalizations have been steadily escalating. For comparison, there were 6.6 county residents hospitalized the first week of October and 16.3 the second week.
				Of those hospitalized, an average 8.1 county residents were on ventilators each day last week, or 2.4 more than the prior week&rsquo;s 5.7, the dashboard said.
				New confirmed coronavirus cases also markedly increased in the county over the two-week period, according to the update 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>.
				The county added 760 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last week ending Thursday &mdash; an increase of 317 from the previous week&rsquo;s 443 new cases, the update says.
				As a result, the county&rsquo;s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, rose from 139.5 two weeks ago to a current 239.3, it said.
				Also rising was the county&rsquo;s positivity rate, or percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, which jumped from 7.7% to 10.9%.
				Based on the latest numbers, county school districts will remain in the highest classification of &ldquo;substantial&rdquo; 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.
				With the latest positivity rate rise, the county now meets both of those factors.
				Thirty-eight of the state&rsquo;s 67 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: Adams, Armstrong, Bedford, Berks, Blair, Bradford, Bucks, Butler, Cambria, Carbon, Centre, Clarion, Crawford, Dauphin, Delaware, Elk, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Juniata, Lancaster, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Mercer, Mifflin, Montgomery, Northampton, Northumberland, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Tioga, Union, Venango and Wyoming.
				There are 26 counties in the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; virus spread ranking, which means their districts were advised to avoid full in-person instruction.
				To advance to the &ldquo;low&rdquo; 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 or a blended system, with some students in school while others learn remotely at home, the state said.
				Only three counties were in the low transmission level this week: Cameron, Forest and Sullivan, the state said.
				Friday&rsquo;s early warning update also includes a fifth benchmark &mdash; the percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses &mdash; which rose from 0.6% to 1.1% in the county over the two weeks.
				Statewide numbers
				Like the county, Pennsylvania also experienced an increase in all five virus-tracking benchmarks, the latest update said.
				There were 26,215 additional cases statewide in the week ending Thursday, or 9,569 more than the prior week&rsquo;s 16,646.
				With that increase, the statewide cases per 100,000 rose from 130 to 204.7. The state&rsquo;s positivity rate increased from 6.8% to 9.6% in the latest week.
				Other statewide benchmark updates:
				&#8226; Average daily hospitalizations rose from 1,431.7 to 1,968.1.
				&#8226; The daily average number of patients on ventilators increased from 133.3 to 188.3.
				&#8226; The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses jumped from 0.9% to 1.2%.
				County plea
				Luzerne County Manager C. David Pedri said he drove by a big-box store in the area on Friday afternoon, and it was &ldquo;jammed.&rdquo;
				Pedri isn&rsquo;t arguing for people to stay locked in their homes but said they must &ldquo;be smart&rdquo; when they have contact with others by wearing masks, keeping their distance if possible, sanitizing and frequently washing hands.
				The county brought extra air purifiers into the county&rsquo;s Penn Place Building when teams of workers assembled on Election Day and afterward to complete the mandated processing of ballots in a secure area under public observation, he said.
				&ldquo;The only thing that worked in April was that everybody took this thing seriously, so we have to get back to that mentality,&rdquo; Pedri said.
				County officials continue to limit the number of visitors and workers simultaneously inside county buildings and require temperature checks and masks, he said.
				He is not yet at a stage where he would lock down county buildings as a precaution and said he has not received notice of any state plans to reactivate color-coded countywide protocol restrictions at this time.
				&ldquo;But the numbers should be causing alarm for every resident that this is still very prevalent in our community,&rdquo; Pedri said.

Luzerne County hospital cases up; Pedri pleads for caution