Report shows rise in Luzerne County coronavirus cases and hospitalizations

Luzerne County had a marked increase in new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations this week, according to the latest state early warning dashboard updated Friday.

There were 673 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the county this week ending Thursday, or 176 more than last week’s 497 additional cases, said the state health department statistics posted at www.health.pa.gov.

An average daily 50.4 county residents were hospitalized for COVID-19 this week, which is 13.8 more than last week’s average daily 36.6, it said.

For comparison, the county’s average daily hospitalizations were 3.3 in the week ending July 22 and 130.6 in mid-January.

Of those hospitalized, an average daily 5.3 were on ventilators, or one more than last week.

As a result of the rise in new cases, the county’s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, rose from 156.6 last week to 212 this week, the dashboard said.

The county’s positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, is now 10.8% compared to 10.4% last week.

In the final weekly benchmark, the percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses decreased from 1.1% last week to 0.8% this week in the county.

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Statewide, new cases rose from 20,244 last week to 24,180 this week, increasing the incidence rate to 188.9.

The state’s positivity rate decreased slightly from 9.1% to 8.9%, the dashboard said.

An average 2,267.1 residents were hospitalized daily statewide this week, an increase of 250.8. Average daily hospitalized residents on ventilators increased from 248.6 last week to 278.9 this week.

ER visits attributed to coronavirus rose from 1.5% last week to 1.6%.

Vaccinations

Most people who are hospitalized or died from COVID-19 are unvaccinated, the state health department said.

As of Friday, 166,647 county residents were fully vaccinated, or 58.7% of the 283,657 population estimated to be eligible, according to the state’s online vaccine dashboard at health.pa.gov.

This is an increase of 1,966 from the 164,681 county residents fully vaccinated one week ago, when the percentage was 58.1% of those eligible.

Coronavirus vaccines are only available to those over age 11 at this time.

Luzerne County continues to rank 11th among Pennsylvania counties for its percentage of eligible residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the state vaccine dashboard said. There are 67 counties in the state, although Philadelphia is not part of the state statistics.