COVID-19 Update: Monday, January 25

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from Pennsylvania’s state government as of 3:30 p.m. on Monday, January 25.

Department of Health

The Department of Health has updated it guidance on the use and interpretation of point-of-care antigen test results.

The Department of Health has issued an updated health alert for long-term-care facilities on the use of point-of-care antigen tests, recommending a follow-up molecular test within 48 hours for any asymptomatic person with a positive antigen test result or symptomatic person with a negative result.

Department of Health – by the numbers

Over the weekend Pennsylvania’s total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed 800,000. That means that more than six percent of the state’s population has had the virus.
Although the daily numbers remain very high, the decline in the number of new cases reported every day has fallen significantly in the past week.
The daily death toll remains very high and the state-wide total rose past 20,000 in recent days.
For the week from January 15 through January 21 the state’s overall COVID-19 test positivity rate fell to 10.5 percent; it was 12.7 percent the week before that. This marked the fifth consecutive week the rate fell.
Despite these positive signs, 66 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties remain in “substantial level of community transmission.” This week, Cameron County fell out of this group. Even so, all counties have positivity rates greater than five percent, which is the level that is considered “concerning.”
The numbers of Pennsylvanians hospitalized with COVID-19 has fallen below 4000 for the first time since the week of Thanksgiving. The number of Pennsylvanians in hospital ICUs has fallen again for the second consecutive week, as has the number on ventilators.
More than 22,000 health care workers in the state have contracted COVID-19.
More than 73,000 long-term-care facility residents and employees have contracted COVID-19 in 1529 facilities in all 67 Pennsylvania counties.
Currently, 22 percent of adult ICU beds in the state are unoccupied, as are 19 percent of medical/surgical beds, 17 percent of pediatric ICU beds, 34 percent of pediatric beds, and 34 percent of airborne isolation units.
In its “Reduction of Elective Procedures” dashboard that tracks the criteria the state is using to determine whether to order hospitals to reduce or eliminate elective procedures to ensure their ability to handle possible influxes of COVID-19 patients, the state continues to flag a growing staffing shortage in hospitals in the state’s Keystone health care coalition region (Adams, Bedford, Blair, Centre, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lancaster, Lebanon, Mifflin, Perry, Snyder, and York counties). In that region, 41 percent of the region’s hospitals anticipate a staffing shortage in the coming week – more than the 33 percent level that the state believes poses a potential problem. The overall situation in the Keystone region, however, has not reached a point where the state would direct hospitals in this region to reduce or eliminate their elective surgeries. This situation has remained the same for the past three weeks.
As of January 25 the state’s vaccine dashboard shows that 451,000 Pennsylvanians have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and more than 114,000 have received both doses of vaccine.
The vaccine dashboard shows vaccine totals by county both on a map and in lists.
A spreadsheet of facilities that have received vaccines can be found here.
As ordered by the Department of Health in late 2020, health care institutions – hospitals, FQHCs, and others – must reserve 10 percent of the doses of COVID-19 vaccines they received for non-hospital health care providers. Now, the vaccine page on the department’s web site features a map of locations where non-hospital providers can obtain vaccines. The map includes contact information for non-hospital providers identifying whom they can contact to schedule their vaccines. State officials say more sites will be added to this map as more doses of COVID-19 vaccine become available.

Department of Human Services

DHS’s Office of Children, Youth, and Families has updated its general guidance reflecting the state’s COVID mitigation orders affecting services to children, youth, and families served by counties and providers licensed by the office. The guidance covers safety precautions and visitation requirements.

Around the State

Spotlight PA has posted an interactive map that shows every COVID-19 vaccination site in 66 of the state’s 67 counties (Philadelphia is not included).
Appointments to receive COVID-19 vaccines are being filled almost as soon as they are being made available in some parts of the state. Lehigh Valley Live reports that two weeks’ worth of appointments in Allentown were filled in just three hours, while according to WESA-FM, “Less than an hour after the Allegheny County Health Department opened up vaccination appointments to people age 65 and older all the slots were reportedly filled.” The Allegheny Health Network has stopped making vaccination appointments because of a shortage of vaccines, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that “After nearly a year of dealing with the effects of COVID-19 with the assistance of neighboring Chester County, Delaware County has taken a series of concrete steps toward forming a health department of its own.”