5 Of 6 Key Coronavirus Metrics Down In Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG, PA — Pennsylvania has released an update of the status of the coronavirus pandemic based on six key COVID-19 metrics. As outlined on the state's Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard, Pennsylvania shows an overall decline in five of six key metrics.

The metrics include difference in confirmed cases, incidence rate, percent positivity rate, difference in average daily number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, difference in average daily number of COVID-19 patients on a ventilator, and percent of hospital emergency department
visits due to COVID-like illness.

Here's how the state is faring in the six metrics, followed by county-level data for the five Pittsburgh-area counties:

Difference in confirmed cases

As of Sept. 24, the state has seen a seven-day case increase of 5,070 cases. The previous seven-day increase was 5,551, indicating a 481-case decrease across the state over the past week.

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: -98

BEAVER: -8

BUTLER: -5

WASHINGTON: -41

WESTMORELAND: +13

Incidence rates

The state's incidence rate, which now stands at 39.6 cases per 100,000 residents, declined from 43.3 in the past week, which Gov. Wolf said is "testament to all the work Pennsylvanians are doing to unite against
this virus."

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: 29.7

BEAVER: 32.2

BUTLER: 22.9

WASHINGTON: 20.3

WESTMORELAND: 27.4

Percent positivity

Pennsylvania's week-over-week percent positivity rate also decreased. The statewide percent-positivity went down to 3.2 percent from 3.7 percent last week.

However,there are seven counties with concerning percent-positivity rates (above 5 percent). Those include Centre (12.0 percent), Northumberland (8.3 percent), Juniata (6.8 percent), Indiana (5.9 percent), Lebanon (5.7 percent), Snyder (5.2 percent), York (5.2 percent). The state said it continues to monitor all available data.

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: 2.9 percent

BEAVER: 2.9 percent

BUTLER: 2.4 percent

WASHINGTON: 2.5 percent

WESTMORELAND: 2.7 percent

Difference in average daily number of COVID-19 hospitalizations

Hospitalizations across Pennsylvania are also down. The statewide average daily hospitalizations went from 479.4 to 427.9. The daily average is down by 51.5.

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: -6.7

BEAVER: +0.9

BUTLER: - 5.2

WASHINGTON: -2.6

WESTMORELAND: +1.3

Difference in average daily number of COVID-19 patients on a ventilator

The number of patients on ventilators decreased as well. In the week prior, there was a daily average of 58.1 patients on ventilators across the state. Seven days later, that number stood at 54.

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: - -0.8

BEAVER: -0.6

BUTLER: 0

WASHINGTON: -0.4

WESTMORELAND: 0

Percent of hospital emergency department visits due to COVID-like illness

This is the only metric that saw a slight increase statewide in the past week's data. It went up 0.1 percent, from 0.6 percent to 0.7 percent.

Here is the county data:

ALLEGHENY: 0.4 percent

BEAVER: 0.3 percent

BUTLER: 0.7 percent

WASHINGTON: 0.9 percent

WESTMORELAND: 0.5 percent.

Reporting by Kara Seymour/Patch