Pittsburgh Allegheny County exceeds the “severe milestone” of 1,000 deaths across the COVID-19 pandemic

By PublicSource Reporter | January 6, 2021

COVID-19 deaths confirmed in Allegheny County on Tuesday exceeded 1,000. The 29 newly reported deaths have brought the death toll in Allegheny County to 1,011 since the outbreak of the pandemic.

“The death toll of 1,000 is a tough milestone that Allegheny County wanted to escape,” ACHD director Dr. Debra Bogen said in a press release. “Each of the 1,011 people who died was a beloved member of our community. We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to all who lost their loved ones at COVID-19.”

From December 5th to January 4th, the death toll was 1 in 40s, 2 in 60s, 6 in 70s, 10 in 80s, and 10 in 90s. ACHD associates 22 of these deaths with care facilities.

ACHD also reported 565 new COVID-19 cases from a positive test from November 29th to January 4th. New individuals who test positive have a median age of 43, ranging from 2 months to 100 years.

To date, ACHD has reported 56,827 COVID-19 cases and 3,264 past and present hospitalizations.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed on Tuesday 8,818 new COVID-19 cases and 185 new virus deaths, bringing the total number of new pandemics to 673,915 cases and 16,546 deaths.

Currently, 5,630 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, about 21% of whom are in the intensive care unit.

Residents of nursing homes and personal care homes account for about 9.6% of the state’s total cases and about 55% of the state’s deaths. Healthcare workers make up about 2.9% of the total number of cases in the state.

Latest information on vaccines

By Monday, Pennsylvania had at least 144,863 vaccinations.

The federal government has allocated 166,725 doses of Pfizer vaccine to be shipped to Pennsylvania this week. Of these, 97,500 (about 58%) were the second dose of the first round of vaccinated individuals, 30,225 (about 18%) were medical facilities, and 39,000 (about 23%) were federal with CVS. Reserved for partnership. Walgreens.

Pennsylvania will also receive 80,000 new modelna vaccines this week.

The Allegheny County Health Department added the COVID-10 Vaccination Distribution Clinic to the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh-Monroeville Convention Center on Monday.

Previously, the only COVID-19 distribution clinic was in downtown. According to a press release on Monday, more than 700 facilities or organizations are requesting vaccination through the county’s online form.

At this time, vaccinations are only available to individuals in the Phase 1A category for healthcare professionals. Workers only need to be hired in Allegheny County to access this clinic — no matter where they live.

Governor Tom Wolf’s office reported a new state-wide positive rate of 15% on the COVID-19 test. This is 0.1% lower than last week. The state also confirmed 40,407 new cases between December 25 and December 31, a decrease of more than 8,000 from the previous week.

Of those 40,407 new cases from the last week of December, 3,929 came from individuals aged 5 to 18 years.

Still, a surprisingly small number of people are answering calls from case investigators who collect data about business trips and prepare contact tracer information. Only 4.4% of the people behind the 53,947 cases reported between December 20 and December 26 provided information about business trips to case investigators. About 5.7% of the respondents said they visited the company, and the majority went to restaurants.

Monday morning marked the expiration of a mitigation order announced in December that temporarily bans indoor dining, extracurricular activities and gymnasiums. Governor Tom Wolf said at a press conference on December 30 that these orders were specifically aimed at controlling the transmission of the virus during the holiday season.

“Our mitigation efforts over the past few weeks have done what they intended. Thank you to everyone who has adhered to the restrictions set to protect us,” Wolff said. Told.

Wolf has revealed that there are still some other orders that must be obeyed.

“I keep saying, I can’t ignore the reality that the virus is there,” Wolff said. “And no matter what we do, this isn’t me. This isn’t what Secretary Levine is talking about. It’s a virus and says,” I’m going to getcha! ” .. “

Restaurant violation

The Allegheny County Health Department has investigated more than 40 restaurants where violations have been reported since Wolff’s latest mitigation restrictions came into effect on December 12.

“In many cases, these breaches have been fixed by re-examination, and we are grateful for the response of restaurants and food stores,” ACHD director Dr. Debra Bogen said in a press conference Wednesday. “On the other hand, other restaurants were often villains, requiring follow-up inspections and additional measures.”

Allegheny County has ordered several restaurants that do not comply with closure orders, such as Bethel Park’s Arzu Cafe and Castle Shannon’s Pierquadio Italian Restaurant & Lounge.All restaurants ordered to close View online..

Finding the problematic restaurant is an option available in ACHD used on a case-by-case basis, according to Bogen. She again begged the residents not to patronize restaurants that did not obey the mitigation orders.

Vaccinations for paramedics and nursing homes

On December 30, Levine issued a new order requiring all vaccine providers, including hospitals and pharmacies, to secure at least 10% of vaccines for non-directly hired healthcare providers, such as emergency medical technicians. Announced.

“Many vaccinated places have already started vaccination of these providers voluntarily and we are very grateful for their efforts,” Levine said at a press conference Wednesday. I did. “But today’s orders work to formalize this process and eliminate confusion between vaccine providers and Phase 1A healthcare professionals.”

The county also Vaccine dashboard Wednesday. We frequently provide up-to-date information on the number of times the county has given vaccines and share demographics of vaccinated people.

Throughout the state, the people who have been vaccinated so far are overwhelmingly white and more often women. Individuals between the ages of 30 and 34 are vaccinated more than any other age group.

In the first week of January, CVS will provide the COVID-19 vaccine to all residents and staff of the Kane Community Living Center in Allegheny County if a vaccine is needed.

Secretary-General Dennis Biond expects that there will be enough vaccinations available to anyone who wants it. According to Biond, nearly 70% of staff now want a vaccine, which they expect to increase to 80% and even 90% in some cases. Some people are worried about vaccines because of false information. For example, some people fear that the vaccine may infect COVID-19, but this is not true.

“Staff who say they don’t want to receive will go back and talk, provide materials and answer such questions,” Biond said at a press conference on Tuesday. “If someone says that the vaccine might infect COVID, we are ready to answer and explain that it is not true.”

According to Dr. Rachel Levin, Director of Health, Pennsylvania, a Walgreens partnership aimed at providing vaccinations to residents and employees of the federal government, CVS, and long-term care facilities will be held in Pennsylvania and elsewhere on Monday. Officially launched in the state of.

During this first week, CVS will be vaccinated at 120 skilled nursing homes throughout Pennsylvania, and Walgreens will be vaccinated at six skilled nursing homes throughout the state. In the future, the partnership will also serve other facilities such as life support facilities and personal care homes.

“This vaccination process takes time, especially depending on the amount of vaccine we receive each week from the federal government,” Levine said in a live stream on Monday. “In the meantime, our mitigation efforts are more important than ever.”

The Allegheny County Health Department asked medical institutions and private practitioners to fill out an online form to request vaccinations on Tuesday. The organization must be in Allegheny County, but employees do not have to live in the county.The county requires one person on behalf of a particular organization to fill out Online form Request vaccination.

This article was reported by Nicole C. Brambila, Oliver Morrison, Rich Lord, Matt Petras, Juliette Rihl, Charlie Wolfson, Mark Kramer, Jon Moss, Emma Folts, Veonna King, Amanda Su, Kellen Stepler, James Anthony Bell III, Sophie Burkholder. it was done. And Amanda Hernandez.