Fall COVID-19 surge is underway in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania health officials believe a fall resurgence of COVID-19 cases is underway and will begin distributing rapid antigen tests to counties of concern.
The state Wednesday marked its ninth consecutive day where new daily COVID-19 cases were in four digits, Health Secretary Rachel Levine said.
“We believe that we are at the start of the fall resurgence,” Levine said during a press conference that was streamed live from Harrisburg.
She said 1,276 additional cases were reported, taking the statewide total to 175,922 since March. The virus has killed 8,411 Pennsylvanians after 27 new deaths were reported Wednesday, none of which occurred in Fayette, Greene, Washington or Allegheny counties.
“Make sure you mask up. Get a flu shot,” Levine said.
The state also announced Wednesday that the federal government has provided enough rapid antigen tests to ship 250,000 of them per month in Pennsylvania until the end of the year.
The first allotments were to go to Bradford, Centre, Lebanon, Montour, Northumberland, Schuylkill and Snyder counties because of the recent high disease incidence rate in those areas.
Levine said it’s impossible to predict what the future will be with the pandemic, but that she had no plans at this time to change the mitigation orders that are in place.
She also said Pennsylvania has more resources on hand to deal with the virus than it did in the spring.
Cases continued to rise Wednesday in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Fayette County added seven new cases to its total of 886. Greene County saw one new case for a total of 205.
Washington County reported seven new cases of the virus, taking its total to 1,563.
Cases in Allegheny County have been “relatively stable,” according to Rich Fitzgerald, the county’s executive. In a Wednesday afternoon media briefing, he said many of the cases likely sprang from gatherings of families and friends where people felt sufficiently comfortable to take off their masks and lower their guard.
Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny Health Department, noted, “Things aren’t getting better in Allegheny County, but they haven’t been getting substantially worse.”
Staff writer Brad Hundt contributed to this story.