Pennsylvania expands COVID testing menu at all free sites, including Berks

Jul. 7—The Pennsylvania Department of Health is expanding options at COVID-19 community-based testing sites operated in partnership with AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, including the Berks site in Bern Township.

The move comes amid a flattening of the numbers of official cases not far off the second omicron peak in Berks County and the continued elevated numbers of people hospitalized.

AMI will now offer three forms of free testing: point-of-care tests where tests are performed and results are analyzed on-site; the distribution of at-home antigen testing; and continued administration of the nasal passage swab PCR testing.

"Testing is the best way to identify the virus and know what steps to take in order to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19," said Dr. Denise Johnson, department of health acting secretary and physician general. "We continue to work with partners across the state ensuring the consistent accessibility of COVID-19 testing."

The testing sites are free and open to anyone age 2 and older who feels they need a test on a first-come, first-serve basis. PCR tests are only available to ages 3 and older. Individuals do not need to be experiencing symptoms of COVID to be tested. Patients are encouraged to bring a photo ID, but ID is not required to be tested. Appointments are not necessary. Registration will be completed on-site.

The Bern Township site is at 2561 Bernville Road.

The site is expected to be open at least until Sept. 4, running 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Officials said the Do Your Part Berks website remains a good source of information: https://www.doyourpartberks.com.

Latest weekly update

Meanwhile, Berks added 393 official COVID cases and reinfections in the latest weekly update of the state health department's COVID dashboard. The total since March 2020 is 108,924.

Many people have had COVID multiple times, with more people taking at-home tests or no longer getting tested at all, dramatically muddying the picture of how many people have had the illness.

The 393 comes a week after 651 cases were reported last week. It seems like a decline, but the 651 was a eight-day report and the 393 was for six days. That was due to a technical glitch last week on the state's end.

Averaging the two weeks is 522 cases per week, which would still be an increase from the June 22 bottoming out of the second omicron surge at 381.

Researchers at the University of Washington in their latest projection believe the real number of cases is nearly 10 times the official total in Pennsylvania.

The number of cases fell below 100 per week for Berks in late March and early April after the initial omicron surge and before different variants invaded the Lower 48, and the second omicron surge took off about three weeks later.

The number of cases is cumulative for the week.

Hospitalizations and deaths

The state dashboard listed Berks with 28 COVID hospitalizations, including one in intensive care and one on a ventilator. It was unclear if it's the same person.

The previous three weekly reports listed 29, 31 and 31, respectively. Each report is for one day, in this case Tuesday.

Tower Health updates its COVID dashboard on Tuesday, and for Reading Hospital that showed 22 patients admitted or under observation with one in the ICU.

Both dashboards are one-day looks at the situation and not cumulative, so the ups and down of the previous week are not evident.

In April, the number of people hospitalized in Berks was in single digits most days between the initial omicron surge and the rise of the variants.

Of the 22 at Reading Hospital, 13 are considered fully vaccinated and the rest not vaccinated.

Health officials have lamented that the designation of fully vaccinated is nearly meaningless now because most of the vaccinated had a Johnson & Johnson shot or the two-course Pfizer or Moderna products more than six months ago.

Vaccinations have slowed to a trickle.

The hospital admissions number for Berks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention varies significantly from the state numbers: 11 in the past week, a third of the total from a week earlier.

The number hospitalized across Pennsylvania was listed at 1,054, a slight decline from a week ago.

In deaths, the state dashboard listed two for Berks for a total of 1,621 since March 2020. The Berks coroner's office also issued a report this week that showed two deaths for last week.

The coroner's office has recorded 1,501 deaths since 2020. The office backtracked on one COVID death from the previous week, and added two.

Pennsylvania overall added 55 deaths for a total of 45,821, down from 109 deaths in the previous report. But again, the higher total was for eight days and the lower for six days.