David Mekeel: Berks County adds 31 COVID deaths in the past week

Jan. 17—The COVID pandemic is still proving to be deadly 22 months after first arriving in Berks County.

There have been 31 COVID death in Berks over the past week, according to data from the Berks County coroner's office. The coroner's weekly update released Monday shows the county's pandemic total for COVID deaths now sits at 1,326.

The average age of the 31 people to die of COVID over the last week was 70 and ranged from 44 to 97. Five people of the people were in their 40s and four were in their 50s. Nine of the deaths were people over age 80.

Sixteen of the deaths were male, and 15 were female.

COVID deaths have been slightly on the rise recently in Berks, coinciding with the recorded-setting daily cases counts of the ongoing omicron variant surge.

Since the start of the year, the coroner's office has reported 65 COVID deaths in the county. That represents about 5% of the county's total COVID deaths in a timespan that's 2.5% of the pandemic.

There were 24 COVID deaths contained in the coroner's weekly report issued last Monday.

The coroner's office reports COVID deaths that take place in the county. The state Department of Health, on the other hand, reports on its COVID dashboard the number of Berks residents to die of COVID anywhere.

The state dashboard's update on Monday did not include any new Berks deaths. The state's pandemic total for Berks deaths is 1,407.

Statewide there have been 38,619 COVID deaths during the pandemic.

Daily cases continue fluctuation

A day after one of the highest daily case counts for Berks, state data released Monday showed a huge plunge.

Only 471 new cases and reinfections were reported. That's the lowest number for the county since 300 was reported on Dec. 27.

The low number Monday followed the 1,464 that were reported Sunday. That was the second highest daily total of the pandemic, behind only the 1,465 that were reported on Jan. 1, 2021, as part of a large data dump.

The daily case numbers in Berks have fluctuated wildly over the past several days.

Prior to Sunday's 1,464, there were just 611 reported Saturday. But on Friday there were 1,128.

Thursday saw 867 new cases and reinfections.

Monday's case count brings Berks' pandemic total of COVID cases to 93,092.

Statewide COVID cases also plunged in data reported Monday, with only 11,863 new cases and reinfections. The prior day there were more than 32,000.

Pennsylvania has seen just under 2.5 million COVID cases during the pandemic.

Hospitalizations remain high

Hospitalizations of COVID patients remained high in Monday's state dashboard update.

There were a total of 224 COVID patients hospitalized in Berks, the ninth straight day that hospitalizations have been over 200.

State data showed 25 COVID patients in Berks intensive care units and 18 on ventilators.

According to the Tower Health COVID dashboard, as of Monday Reading Hospital had a total of 153 COVID patients, with 17 in intensive care.

Ninety-nine of Reading Hospital's COVID patients were not fully vaccinated, and 10 of the ICU patients were unvaccinated.

According to the Penn State Health COVID dashboard, St. Joseph hospital had a total of 42 COVID patients as of Monday, with eight in intensive care.

Twenty-four of St. Joseph's COVID patients were not fully vaccinated, and six of the ICU patients were unvaccinated.

Statewide there were 7,165 hospitalized COVID patients as of Monday, with 1,128 in intensive care and 695 on ventilators.

COVID In Berks

According to the Monday update of the Pennsylvania Department of Health pandemic dashboard:

471: new cases and reinfections

93,092: pandemic case total

1,023: 14-day average, pandemic record

1,407: pandemic deaths, state

1,326: pandemic deaths, coroner

224: hospitalized

25: ICU count

231,833: fully vaccinated (CDC; no update until Jan. 18)

Worst case days

1,465: Jan. 31, 2021; dump of backlogged cases.

1,464: Jan. 16, 2022

1,319: Jan 9, 2022

1,253: Jan 10, 2022

1,211: Jan. 8, 2022

1,178: Jan. 5, 2022

1,143: Jan. 7, 2022

1,128: Jan. 14, 2022

1,023: Jan. 6, 2022

980: Jan. 12, 2022