The Berks County coroner’s office said Friday that there have been two COVID-19 deaths in Berks since the last report was issued on Tuesday.
The deaths were an 86-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman. Both were Berks residents. The man died in Reading Hospital and the woman in a nursing home, according to acting Coroner Jonn M. Hollenbach.
There have been 24 deaths in September, the most since 32 in May. The pandemic total increased to 1,019.
There are many more COVID cases in people under age 60 but many more deaths in those over 60. For example, of the 22 September deaths, 19 were age 60 or older.
Hollenbach had been providing updates weekly on Tuesdays. He said there will be another on Tuesday, then the pace of deaths will determine if there will be one or two updates a week.
The Friday update of the state Department of Health dashboard showed another death of a Berks resident, pushing the pandemic total to 1,073.
Pennsylvania overall recorded 44 deaths for a pandemic total of 28,812.
The coroner reports the deaths as they occur and the state reports them as the paperwork reaches the records office by email or postal service.
Cases data
The dashboard update showed Berks with another 115 cases as the pandemic total closed in on 53,000 at 52,944.
The 115 cases came from 357 tests.
The seven-day average was up slightly to 120 and the 14-day was flat at 116.
https://www.readingeagle.com/2021/09/01/berks-county-covid-dashboard/
The daily update is a tally of the previous day’s results, in this case Thursday. The averages smooth the uneven processing of tests.
In Pennsylvania overall, there were 5,198 new cases, second in the delta surge to the 5,786 from Thursday’s update.
The pandemic case total for the state passed 1.37 million.
The latest high-water mark is about half the daily total of cases statewide during the peak of the winter outbreak. But there were only a dozen or so days of 10,000-plus cases during that surge, the most tragic of the 18-month pandemic.
Each new case is a new person testing positive. About 6% of the cases are breakthrough infections, meaning people who were fully inoculated for at least two weeks became sick.
Hospitalizations
In COVID hospitalizations, Berks added one patient and one in critical care for totals of 61 and 10, respectively. The delta surge highs are 73 and 15, respectively.
Overall in Pennsylvania, there were 14 more total patients and 29 more in the ICUs. The totals were 2,337 and 589, respectively.
The Reading Hospital dashboard update Friday morning continued the downturn that had started at the beginning of the week. There were 34 patients, with five in the ICU, eight discharges in the previous 24 hours and no deaths.
The vaccinations portion of the dashboard was not updated Friday.
CDC statistics
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had these numbers for Berks in its most recent update:
832: cases, 7-day total
9.55%: positivity
High: community spread
218,885: Fully inoculated
The CDC vaccination stats present a more complete picture of the inoculation effort by including the work done at Veterans Affairs locations and nursing homes.
COVID in Berks
New cases: 115
Pandemic total: 52,944
14-day average: 116
Deaths: state, 1,073; coroner, 1,018
Fully vaccinated: 218,885
