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Luzerne County is showing signs of improvement in coronavirus reduction, a weekly report released Friday shows.
The county’s case count, rate of positive COVID-19 tests, hospitalizations and ventilator use all decreased this week, according to the state health department’s early warning dashboard update.
Posted at www.health.pa.gov, the report compared statistics from the weeks ending Thursday and Jan. 7.
The county had 1,161 new confirmed cases this week, or 90 less than the 1,251 additional cases tracked two weeks ago.
As a result, the number of cases per 100,000 residents, or county incidence rate, decreased from 394.1 to 365.8 over the two-week period.
Its positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, declined from 15.4% to a new 13.4%. For context, the county’s rate was 1.5% when the state launched the dashboard at the end of June.
An average 120.6 county residents were hospitalized each day this week, a slight decrease from the previous week’s 121.9, it said.
Of those hospitalized, an average 10.3 were on ventilators, or 1.6 less than the 11.9 reported two weeks ago.
In the final benchmark tracked in the dashboard, the county’s percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses increased from 0.5% to 0.7% over the two weeks.
Statewide numbers
The state also experienced across-the-board reductions in the benchmarks.
There were 40,088 additional confirmed cases this week, or 3,833 less than the 43,921 reported two weeks ago.
This lowered the state’s incidence rate from 343.1 to 313.1.
The statewide positivity rate decreased from 14.5% to a new 12.7%.
An average 5,154.6 state residents were hospitalized daily for the coronavirus this week, or 377.5 less than the prior week’s 5,532.1.
Of those hospitalized, 632.6 were on ventilators each day this week, a reduction of 24.8.
The percentage of hospital visits due to coronavirus-like illnesses also decreased from 1.1% to 0.9% over the two-week period.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
