Little change in Berks COVID data

David Mekeel, Reading Eagle, Pa.
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Dec. 9—Berks County saw some small changes in its weekly COVID data.

A data update from the state this week showed slight increases in cases, deaths and the case rate, while hospitalizations were down.

Cases

The county saw a slight increase in weekly cases.

According to Wednesday's update of the state Department of Health's COVID dashboard, Berks had 384 new cases and reinfections. That's up 20 from the 364 reported last week.

It was the second straight week the county saw an increase in new cases and reinfections.

The county's COVID cases per 100,000 residents was also up from data reported last week. The state's Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard showed that between Nov. 30 and Dec. 6 the county had a case rate of 55 per 100,000 people. Last week the rate was 49 per 100,000 people.

The positivity rate of 12.3% in Berks was up by two-tenths of a point from the rate reported last week.

Overall, Berks has had 121,192 COVID cases during the pandemic.

Statewide, this week's data showed 78 COVID cases per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 10.9%. Both were up from data reported last week.

There have been 3,374,733 COVID cases in the state during the pandemic, with 13,936 new cases and reinfections added in Wednesday's data update.

Deaths

The state, which reports the number of Berks residents to die no matter where the deaths take place, reported this week that a total of 1,711 county residents have died of COVID. That's an increase of six from data reported last week.

Statewide, a total of 48,527 people have died of COVID, an increase of 140 from data reported last week.

Hospitalizations

Hospitalizations of COVID patients in Berks decreased slightly after rising to the highest level in two months last week.

According to state data released Wednesday, there were 45 hospitalized patients in the county. That's down four from the previous week.

Of the hospitalized patients, two were in intensive care and two were on ventilators. The number of intensive care patients was down two from data reported last week, while the number on ventilators was down five.

Statewide there were 1,264 COVID patients hospitalized, down five from the number reported last week.

Vaccinations

—The number of fully vaccinated individuals in Berks was 258,850, an increase of 327.

—The number of individuals to receive a bivalent booster dose since Sept. 2 is 43,956, an increase of 2,136.