Nov. 11—Berks County’s weekly COVID data, which has seen months and months of fluctuations, trended worse this week.
New cases and reinfections, hospitalizations and the case rate were all up in the state’s weekly data update. Deaths and the positivity rate, however, were down slightly.
Cases
The county saw an increase in weekly cases.
According to Wednesday’s update of the state Department of Health’s COVID dashboard, Berks had 485 new cases and reinfections. That’s up 56 from the 429 reported last week.
This week’s case count was the highest since 503 cases were reported on Sept. 28.
The county’s COVID cases per 100,000 residents were also up from data reported last week. The state’s Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard showed that between Nov. 2 and 8 the county had a case rate of 61 per 100,000 people. Last week the rate was 52 per 100,000 people.
The positivity rate of 9.7% in Berks was down by half of a percentage point from the rate reported last week.
Overall, Berks has had 119,669 COVID cases during the pandemic.
Statewide, this week’s data showed 70 COVID cases per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 10.4%. Both were down from data reported last week.
There have been 3,330,062 COVID cases in the state during the pandemic, with 12,208 new cases and reinfections added in Wednesday’s data update.
Deaths
The state, which reports the number of Berks residents to die no matter where the deaths take place, reported this week that a total of 1,696 county residents have died of COVID. That’s an increase of seven from data reported last week.
The seven deaths are one less than the eight reported last week, and the second most since July 27.
Statewide, a total of 47,994 people have died of COVID, an increase of 154 from data reported last week.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalizations of COVID patients in Berks ticked up this week.
According to state data released Wednesday, there were 38 hospitalized patients in the county. That’s up two from the previous week.
Of the hospitalized patients, three were in intensive care and two were on a ventilator. The number of intensive care patients was down one from last week, while the number on ventilators was up one.
Statewide there were 1,261 COVID patients hospitalized, up 13 from the number reported last week.
Vaccinations
—The number of fully vaccinated individuals in Berks was 257,344, an increase of 546.
—The number of individuals to receive a bivalent booster dose since Sept. 2 is 33,634, an increase of 3,599.
creditSource link
