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After months of steady increases, Luzerne County had a drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations last week, according to the state’s latest early warning dashboard update.
The county’s average daily coronavirus hospitalizations were 154.9 the week ending Feb. 3, which is a decrease of 24.7 from the 179.6 reported the week ending Jan. 27, it said.
However, the latest count of 154.9 is still higher than the past high of 130.6 the week ending Jan. 21, 2021, based on prior published state dashboard reports.
Statewide, residents who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated account for 85% of reported COVID-19 hospitalizations, the state health department has said.
Of the county residents hospitalized last week, an average 15.6 were on ventilators each day, or 0.3 more than the count two weeks ago, said the state health department’s report posted at www.health.pa.gov.
There were 1,140 new cases in the county last week, or a decrease of 1,131 from the prior week’s 2,271 new cases, it said.
As a result, the county’s incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 residents, was lowered from 715.5 two weeks ago to 359.1 last week.
The county’s positivity rate, or the percentage of diagnostic tests yielding positive results, dropped from 27.5% two weeks ago to a new 20.9%.
In the remaining dashboard statistic, the percentage of hospital visits tied to coronavirus-like illnesses in the county decreased from 0.9% two weeks ago to 0.7% last week, it said.
Both the county’s incidence and positivity rates are higher than the statewide averages.
State numbers
The state had decreases in all early warning benchmark categories last week.
There were 42,232 new COVID-19 cases throughout the state last week, or 34,828 less than the prior week’s 77,060 new cases, the dashboard said.
That lowered the state’s incidence rate from 601.9 to 329.9 over the two weeks.
The state’s positivity rate also decreased from 25.4% to a new 18.4% last week, it said.
Coronavirus hospitalizations went from an average daily 5,985.3 two weeks ago to 4,517.4 last week — a reduction of 1,467.9.
An average daily 479.9 hospitalized patients were on ventilators last week, or 115.8 less than the previous week, it said.
Finally, ER visits dropped from 1% to 0.8%.
Deaths
The county’s most recent coronavirus death victims included a 42-year-old and 52-year-old, according to a coroner’s office report covering 16 deaths from Jan. 20 to Feb. 2.
An age breakdown of the remaining deaths in this report: four in their 60s; four in their 70s; four in their 80s; and two in their 90s.
Three were listed as residents of nursing homes or assisted living facilities.
Vaccines
In total, 192,948 county residents have receive all required initial COVID-19 vaccination shots, or 64.16% of the 300,742 eligible residents.
That’s an increase of 955 since Jan. 28, according to the state health department’s vaccination dashboard at health.pa.gov.
Of those already fully vaccinated in the county, 91,488 have obtained an additional booster shot since Aug. 13.
Another 26,675 county residents are partially vaccinated because they did not yet receive both required initial doses, the dashboard said.
Pediatric vaccines
A total 4,682 county children ages 5 to 11 have received both doses required for full initial vaccination since Nov. 2.
Another 1,257 county children in this age group are partially vaccinated, the dashboard said.
Statewide, 226,226 children in the age group are now fully vaccinated, while another 287,904 have received the first shot, it said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.