Overall trend in Luzerne County has been downward, however
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State ZIP code data on COVID-19 cases shows that Wilkes-Barre and Kingston have become the biggest source of new cases, surpassing Hazleton.
From Sept. 18 through Friday, the Wilkes-Barre code of 18702 had nine new cases, while the Kingston code of 18704 had eight. By comparison, Hazleton’s two codes of 18201 and 18202 had six and five new cases respectively.
Kingston, in fact, has seen a rise in cases all September. Through August the code typically had zero to two new cases a week. Since Sept. 1 through Friday the state has reported 29 new cases in the 18704 code, including eight in the past week.
As it has for at least a month, the sprawling Bloomsburg code of 17815 had the most new cases this week — 10 — of the 41 codes all or partially in Luzerne County, but odds are high that all of those cases are in Columbia County. The Bloomsburg code only juts slightly into southern Luzerne County.
Like Kingston, the Dallas code of 18612 reported zero to two new cases each week in August, but has seen an increase in the last two weeks, though not as big as the rise in Kingston. There were four new cases this past week and five the week before.
Still, the overall trend in Luzerne County has been downward. The state reported 95 new cases the week ending Sept. 11, 74 the week after that and 71 this week. The number of cases in the 41 ZIP codes is higher each week, but many codes cross county lines as the Bloomsburg code does, so the difference almost certainly reflects out-of-county cases in those codes.
Of the 41 codes the Times Leader tracks, 17 had no new cases this week, while another eight had only one new case.