Last week, Luzerne County had a drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations but a rise in new confirmed coronavirus cases.
The opposite happened this week, with fewer cases but more hospitalizations, according to the state health department’s latest early warning dashboard report released Friday.
An average daily 62 county residents were hospitalized for the coronavirus the week ending Thursday, or 16.9 more than the previous week’s average daily 45.1 residents, the state said.
For context, average daily hospitalizations were a much higher 130.6 in mid-January but only 7.3 last June.
The number of hospitalized county residents on ventilators also rose this week, from an average daily 2.1 residents to 4.1.
Cases
In the encouraging news, there were 662 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the county this week — a decrease of 130 compared to the 792 logged the week ending April 15.
Putting these numbers in perspective, there were 1,452 new county cases the last week of December and only 44 at the end of June.
With fewer new cases this week, the county’s incidence rate — the number of cases per 100,000 residents — decreased from 249.5 to 208.6.
The county’s positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, also dropped from 11.7% last week to a current 10.2%.
In the remaining benchmark statistic, the percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses decreased slightly from 0.9% last week to 0.8% this week.
The dashboard is posted at www.health.pa.gov.
Deaths
The county is now at 788 total deaths attributed to COVID-19.
County Manager C. David Pedri released the latest county coroner’s office summary Friday, which provided basic information about 31 coronavirus deaths that occurred in March and April.
The victims included a 48-year-old and four people in their 50s, it said.
Vaccinations
Based on the latest figures, 89,656 county residents are now fully vaccinated.
Another 36,347 county residents are partially vaccinated because they received one of two required doses.
Residents 16 and older are able to be vaccinated.
The latest U.S. Census projections can be applied to get a general sense of the population vaccinated to date. Approximately 255,000 county residents are over 18 based on projections for 2019.
Big picture
A similar early warning dashboard trend emerged statewide this week, with decreasing new cases but more patients in hospitals.
There were 21,167 additional confirmed cases this week, or 4,172 less than the 25,339 reported two weeks ago.
This lowered the state’s incidence rate from 197.9 to 165.3.
The statewide positivity rate dropped from 9.6% to 8.6%.
An average daily 2,740.1 coronavirus hospitalizations were reported statewide this week — an increase of 207.2, the report said.
On average, there were 282.1 hospitalized residents on ventilators each day this week, an increase of 23.1.
The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses decreased from 0.9% to 0.7% during the two-week period