Allegheny County posts covid-19 case increase in triple digits

Coronavirus cases in the triple digits were reported Thursday in Allegheny County, a day after the county had its lowest number of new covid-19 cases in almost two months.

The death toll in the county grew Thursday, as well, with one new death reported.

There were 100 new cases reported Thursday by the Allegheny County Health Department, after just 27 were reported Wednesday. New cases have stayed under 100 for most of the month, having now reached triple digits just three times in August.

The new cases come from 1,648 test results that span June 23-Aug. 19, with the county saying all but three specimen collection dates were from the past week. Ages for new cases, of which 96 are confirmed and four probable, range from 2 to 91, with a median age of 44.

The new covid-19 death was a person in their 70s with a date of death of Aug. 12. Allegheny County’s death total is now 298 and case total is now 9,676.

As of Thursday, there are currently 94 covid-19 patients hospitalized in Allegheny County, 21 of which are on ventilators, according to the state’s dashboard.

The county estimates 6,627 covid-19 cases have recovered, according to health department data.

At a Wednesday news conference, Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen said that during the surge in positive cases in July, the health department reassigned staff members who had been in charge of maintaining hospitalization data to work as case investigators and contact tracers.

Bogen said the county now is in the process of entering a “backlog” of data on older hospitalizations into its database. Many of the hospitalizations occurred in July.

“We didn’t feel like a new daily number of past or present hospitalizations that included many hospitalizations from last month would be beneficial,” Bogen said.