Wilkes-Barre remains COVID-19 hot spot amid county's surge

Mark Guydish, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
·1 min read

Sep. 25—Amid the ongoing surge of COVID-19 in Luzerne County — daily increases are as high as they were in April — The Wilkes-Barre ZIP code of 18702 continues to be the hot spot, by a substantial margin.

Among the 41 codes all or partly in Luzerne County tracked by the Times Leader, 18702 reported 93 new cases this week, 26 more than the code with the next highest count, Bloomsburg's 17815, with 67. That code is almost entirely in Columbia County. The Kingston code of 18704 — entirely in Luzerne County — was a close third with 66 new cases.

The Berwick code of 18603, roughly split evenly between Columbia and Luzerne counties, had 63 new cases, while the Hazleton code of 18701, the hot spot early in the pandemic last year, reported 57 new cases.

Of the remaining codes, 17 reported new cases from 10 to 42 for the week. Another sixteen had new case totals in the single digits, and three had no new cases.