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126180447_web1_covid-by-zip-12-18-20

299 new virus cases countywide

Luzerne County&rsquo;s coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, patient ventilator use and testing positivity rate all rose this week, the state&rsquo;s weekly statistics update released Friday shows.
				The county added 2,116 new confirmed COVID-19 cases this week ending Thursday &mdash; an increase of 532 from the 1,584 cases logged the week of Dec. 4 to 10.
				As a result, the county&rsquo;s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, jumped from 498.7 two weeks ago to 666.2 this week, according to the state&rsquo;s early warning dashboard 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>.
				On average, 129.7 county residents were hospitalized daily for coronavirus this week &mdash; an increase of 4.3 compared to two weeks ago.
				Of those hospitalized, an average 8.3 county residents required ventilators each day, which is higher than the 5.4 reported two weeks ago.
				Positivity rate
				The county has now surpassed the 20% mark in its positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results.
				Its new rate is 21%, compared to 17.5% two weeks ago and 1.5% when the state launched the early warning dashboard at the end of June.
				Twenty of the state&rsquo;s 67 counties now have positivity rates 20% and higher, a review of the dashboard shows.
				Only one county is below the 5% rate that the state deems &ldquo;concerning&rdquo; &mdash; Sullivan County, which is at 4.2%, it said.
				Based on the latest numbers, Luzerne 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.
				The substantial level is reached when the incidence rate is 100 or above or the positivity rate is 10% or higher &mdash; benchmarks both currently highly exceeded in the county.
				The state&rsquo;s early warning update also includes a fifth benchmark &mdash; the percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses &mdash; which increased from 0.5% to 0.7% in the county over the two weeks.
				Statewide numbers
				While hospitalizations and ventilator usage increased significantly statewide, the number of new cases and positivity rate decreased.
				Average daily hospitalizations rose from 5,564.4 to 6,139 statewide over the two-week period.
				The number of patients on ventilators daily increased from 634.6 to 711.3.
				Gov. Tom Wolf has said recent additional mitigation steps were necessary to prevent the health system from &ldquo;being overrun.&rdquo;
				Statewide, the positivity rate was 15.8% this week, compared to 16.1% two weeks ago and 4% when the dashboard went live the end of June.
				There were 57,098 additional cases statewide this week, or 4,371 less than the prior week&rsquo;s 61,469 new cases.
				With that decrease, the statewide cases per 100,000 declined from 480 to a current 445.8.
				The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses also decreased from 1.5% to 1.4%.

Luzerne County coronavirus hospitalizations and testing positivity rate rise again