COVID cases continue to rise in Berks and Pa., with numbers far higher than previous summers
Jul. 27—COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Berks County and across Pennsylvania while hospitalizations and deaths remain elevated as the summer phase of the second omicron surge continues.
Berks picked up 754 cases in the past week, according to the weekly Pennsylvania Department of Health virus dashboard update, which occurs on Wednesdays.
It was the third-highest weekly total of the second omicron surge to 913 for the week ending May 25 and 876 for the week ending May 18.
Health experts have said the official cases are only a partial picture of the status of the spread because many people are taking at-home tests and not reporting the results or not getting tested.
Even so, the official numbers are much worse than this time a year ago and two years ago. Both of the previous summers saw the infection rates slow to a fraction of the current numbers.
Currently the seven-day case average is 108. On July 27, 2021, it was 21 and on July 27, 2020, it was 28.
The second omicron surge has been composed of four variants of the original omicron, which swept through the population in the weeks before and after the first of the year.
The overall count of cases and reinfections reached 110,876.
The latest variant to dominate is BA.5, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it might be the most contagious form of COVID to date.
Pennsylvania overall had 22,277 COVID cases in the past week, most since early June. The official total for the state since March 2020 is 3.08 million cases or reinfections in a state of 13 million people.
It's unclear how many of the people in the 3-plus-million cases figure have been counted more than once.
Hospitalizations
The state dashboard showed Berks with 36 COVID patients, down one from a week earlier and not far off the second omicron surge high of 42 for the week ending June 1.
Unlike cases and deaths, which are cumulative weekly totals, the hospitalizations dashboard for the state is a snapshot of how many people were inpatients at the end of the previous day, which is always Tuesday.
The ups and downs between the weekly updates are not visible in the dashboard so it's possible some daily patient counts could have been higher.
Tower Health updates its dashboard on a weekly basis and that showed 30 patients admitted or under observation in Reading Hospital. That, too, is a snapshot of Tuesday.
The number was double a week earlier
There were three discharges in the prior 24 hours.
It's unclear how many are considered under observation and don't make it to patient status and the state dashboard.
Penn State Health discontinued its dashboard in February as the initial omicron surge waned, but reported on Tuesday that there were two COVID patients in St. Joseph hospital, down from nine a week earlier.
Of the 30 in Reading Hospital, 19 were considered fully vaccinated, illustrating what health officials have lamented: The designation means next to nothing anymore because it has been so long since many people finished the initial vaccine course and protection has waned.
Plus, the latest variants are more resistant to vaccines.
It's difficult to reconcile the totals of the hospitals with the state dashboard.
For Pennsylvania overall, there were 1,188 patients, second most of the current surge.
Deaths
The state dashboard listed seven COVID deaths of Berks residents for a total of 1,636 since March 2020.
That was the second-highest weekly total since late February.
The Berks coroner's office this week said it recorded three COVID deaths for last week.
The coroner's report brings the total number of COVID deaths in Berks to 1,512, which includes 26 considered probable from early in the pandemic when testing wasn't done in accordance with family requests.
All 26 died in nursing homes, which saw most of the COVID deaths in the early months of the pandemic.
Hundreds of Berks residents have died outside of the county and a lesser number of nonresidents have died in Berks.
