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Luzerne County’s latest coronavirus death victims include a 45-year-old man and four residents in their 50s, according to a coroner’s office report released Monday.
The 19 deaths in this report occurred between Sept. 29 and Oct. 12. The reports don’t include names or details about any underlying health conditions.
It lists two women ages 55 and 59 and two men ages 56 and 58.
The number of victims in other age groups: 60s, three; 70s, seven; 80s, three; and 90s, one.
Hospitalizations
An average daily 83.6 county residents were hospitalized for COVID-19 last week ending Thursday, or 1.9 more than the 81.7 the week ending Oct. 7, according to the state health department’s latest weekly early warning dashboard update at www.health.pa.gov.
For comparison, the county’s average daily hospitalizations were 3.3 in the week ending July 22 and 130.6 in mid-January.
Of those hospitalized last week, an average daily 10.6 were on ventilators, which is a decrease of 1.3 from the prior week’s average daily 11.9, it said.
There were 809 new cases in the county last week, or 175 less than the 984 new cases logged two weeks ago, the dashboard said. As a result, the county’s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, decreased from 310 two weeks ago to 254.9 last week.
The county’s positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, remained the same over the two-week period: 12.3%.
In the final early warning benchmark, the percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses decreased from 1.5% two weeks ago to 1.4% last week.
Vaccines
As of Monday, 172,990 county residents were fully vaccinated, or 61% of the 283,657 people estimated to be eligible, the state said.
Coronavirus vaccines are only available to those over age 11 at this time.
This is an increase of 1,713 from the 171,277 residents fully vaccinated a little over a week ago on Oct. 8,when the percentage was 60.4% of those eligible.
Luzerne County continues to rank 11th among Pennsylvania counties for its percentage of eligible residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the state vaccine dashboard said.
Boosters
Of those already fully vaccinated in the county, 10,953 have obtained an additional booster shot, the dashboard said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended in August that moderately to severely immunocompromised people who are fully vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna receive an additional dose of vaccine, the state health department said.
In addition, new guidance issued by the FDA and CDC now allows a Pfizer booster shot for long-term care facility residents, those age 65 and older and residents 18 to 64 with jobs or underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk for exposure or serious illness from COVID-19. These boosters are available starting six months after the second Pfizer dose.
State perspective
New cases decreased statewide last week, but there were upticks in hospitalizations and the positivity rate, the early warning dashboard shows.
Statewide, there were 25,046 new cases last week, or 3,204 less than the previous week’s 28,250. That lowered the incidence rate from 220.7 to 195.6.
The state’s positivity rate increased from 9.6% two weeks ago to 9.7% last week.
Hospitalizations were an average daily 2,964.3 last week, which is an increase of 85.4 from the 2,878.9 tracked two weeks ago.
The average daily number of hospitalized patients on ventilators decreased from 383 two weeks ago to 373.9 last week, the dashboard said.
ER visits remained at 1.5%.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.