Allegheny County is “far in our fourth wave of business here,” said Dr. Debra Bogen, director of health, said Wednesday.
The daily number of covid-19 cases has set records for 2021 in the last few days, she said, with 418 new cases reported on Wednesday. The test positivity rate is also close to 9% and hospitalizations are slowly increasing. Deaths due to covid-19, which has been steadily declining once since mid-December, began to increase again in the week of March 21, Bogen said.
“And we know what the cause is,” she said. ‘Great gatherings, combined with no physical distance or masks, mixed with the various viruses in our community. The next few months are the last step, and we must all exercise self-control. This is not the time to give up. ”
At least 75 cases of cases have been recorded in Allegheny County, of which nearly B117 are the variant first identified in the UK. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control, said Tuesday the B117 variant is now the dominant strain of covid-19 circulating in the US.
Bogen’s report came the same day Governor Tom Wolf visited the province at the Department of Health’s latest vaccine distribution at Bethlehem Baptist Church in McKeesport.
The McKeesport Clinic will operate in addition to the counties in Castle Shannon, Ross and Pittsburgh’s Hill District.
More than 243,000 people are fully vaccinated in Allegheny County, according to state Department of Health data. Provincial officials said more than 75% of the population aged 65 and older were now at least partially vaccinated – a critical group, Bogen said, because older people are at greatest risk of experiencing severe cases of covid-19.
Provincial officials also said they expected the distribution of vaccines to accelerate even more than in recent weeks, especially after the announcement of several mass vaccine clinics: the Allegheny County Department of Health has partnered with the two largest health systems in the region, Allegheny Health Network and UPMC, for a combined 25,000 Johnson & Johnson shots at clinics over the next few weeks.
“The simultaneous expansion of fitness and the opening of mass clinics are by design,” Bogen said. “And although AHN and UPMC are managing these major sites, the Department of Health will continue to focus on filling the gaps and meeting unmet needs.”
The country officially launched a new online registration system for vaccine vaccination planning last week, which for some users was quickly overwhelmed with errors. The transition to the new system presents ‘data challenges’, but from Wednesday officials expect that they can plan everyone who wants an appointment, Bogen said. To date, she said, more than 20,000 people have used the tool to sign up for an appointment, and nearly 9,000 have pre-registered on the country’s waiting list.
Teghan Simonton is an author of the staff of Tribune-Review. You can contact Teghan at 724-226-4680, [email protected] or via Twitter .