Weekly COVID data trends in wrong direction in Berks

Sep. 16—Berks County saw its COVID data points worsen in state data updates released this week.

The updates by the state Department of Health showed increased in new cases, infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths.

Cases

The number of new COVID cases and reinfections in Berks saw a jump in the state's Wednesday update of its COVD dashboard.

The county had 778 new cases and reinfections, compared to just 614 reported last week and 633 reported the week before that. Despite the increase, the risk of community spread of COVID in Berks remained low.

The county's COVID cases per 100,000 residents was also up from data reported last week. The state's Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard showed that between Sept. 7 and 13 the county has a case rate of 109 per 100,000 people. Last week the rate was 89 per 100,000 people.

The positivity rate of 17.4% in Berks was up more than half a point from the rate reported last week.

Overall, Berks has had 115,894 COVID cases during the pandemic.

Statewide, this week's data showed 97 COVID cases per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 15.6%. The case rate was about the same as reported last week, while the positivity rate was down by more than half a point.

There have been 3,220,317 COVID cases in the state during the pandemic, with 17,506 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 1,659 county residents have died of COVID. That's an increase of six from data reported last week.

The Berks coroner's office, which reports COVID deaths that take place in the county, reported the county has had 1,501 COVID deaths in its weekly report issued Monday.

The coroner's report added three deaths to the county's total, while subtracting a death that originally had been ruled a COVID death but has since been reclassified.

Statewide, a total of 46,970 people have died of COVID, an increase of 139 from data reported last week.

Hospitalizations

Hospitalizations of COVID patients in Berks remained at an elevated level in this week's data update.

According to state data released Wednesday, there were 47 hospitalized patients in the county. That's up three from the previous week.

Of the hospitalized patients, one was in intensive care and one was on a ventilator. Both of those numbers are down from data reported last week.

Statewide there were 1,171 COVID patients hospitalized, the same number that was reported last week.

Vaccinations

According to the state Department of Health:

—The number of "fully vaccinated" individuals in Berks increased by 284 to a total of 252,970.

—The number of individuals to receive their first booster or third dose grew by 129 to a total of 121,486.

—The number of individuals to receive their second booster or fourth dose grew by 89 to a total of 26,276.