The Pennsylvania Department of Health was closed Friday for the state’s observation of Juneteenth. Data updated on health information systems show 272 additional coronavirus cases on Friday.
The seven-day moving average of newly reported cases was 303, down 31% from 439 a week ago. The average has declined steeply — more than 80% in the last month — and is about equal to where it was the last week of March 2020.
To date, there have been 1.21 million infections statewide since the start of the pandemic.
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Vaccinations
The latest data from the Health Department, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health show that 7.86 million Pennsylvanians have received at least one of the 13.48 million shots administered to residents in all 67 counties, accounting for 70.9% of the state’s 12-and-older population.
Close to 6.12 million Pennsylvanians are fully vaccinated — 55.2% of those eligible, while 1.74 million still need their second shot.
More than 333,000 Lehigh Valley residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, accounting for 57.3% of the local eligible population. An additional 95,000 need their follow-up shot.
The CDC publish data from a survey of vaccine hesitancy in each county. Public health officials had speculated that some minority communities might need more outreach to overcome their anxiety about vaccinations, but Pennsylvania’s data show the opposite to be true.
The majority of counties with the highest hesitancy rates are also overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white, with most of them more than 95% white. The exception is Forest County, which has a significant portion of its 7,247 people being men incarcerated at a state prison.
Chester County has the state’s lowest hesitancy rate, 8.5%; Fayette County the highest, 13.7%. Northampton County is near the bottom of the list for hesitancy, with fewer than 10% of people expressing reservations about getting vaccinated.
None of the state’s 67 counties had more than 10% of people “strongly hesitant” according to the survey results.
Deaths
Overall: 14 compared with 15 on Thursday. The seven-day moving average of deaths per day is 15, compared with 19 a week ago, a decline of 22%
Senior care: No report Friday, leaving the total at 13,338, accounting for 48.4% of the state’s 27,560 deaths.
Hospitalizations
There were 433 people hospitalized as of midday Friday compared with 454 Thursday. Of those, 98 were in intensive care, and 74 were on ventilators. The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 is down more than two-thirds in the last month, and is about 7% of the peak 6,346 patients reported on Dec. 16.
Hospitals in the Lehigh Valley reported 38 COVID-19 patients Friday, the same as Thursday, including seven in intensive care, and five on ventilators.
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Testing
There were 5,989 test results reported Friday, with 3.6% of them positive, compared with 3.2% on Thursday.
The overall positive test rate is 17.7% since the state’s first cases were reported March 6 of last year.
Lehigh Valley
Cases: Six additional case reports, all in Northampton County. That brings the total to 75,638. That’s the lowest number of additional cases in the Valley since the first week in September.
Deaths: No new deaths, leaving the total 1,577 local deaths (861 in Lehigh, and 716 in Northampton).
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Vaccination providers
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