Pa.’s COVID death toll crossed 50k last month despite recent slowdown in deaths, hospitalizations – lehighvalleylive.com

With just 1,025 patients, the state’s COVID-19 patient level has dropped dramatically since 2023 began, and looks to be continuing in that direction. In fact, it nearly matches the state’s lowest number of patients since the summer of 2022.

Back on Nov. 20, there were 1,020 patients hospitalized around the state, according to numbers from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. That was the lowest total Pennsylvania had recorded since mid-July.

There were as many as 1,747 hospitalized patients with a COVID-19 infection in the first week of this year, and that figure has steadily dropped in the weeks since by over 40%. Ventilator usage has seen a similar, if not more encouraging decline in the same window of time. On Jan. 5, there were 105 ventilators in use. On March 2, just 47.

Patient levels and death totals have been the key metrics for health experts for months now, given that they’re required to be reported and a positive case isn’t, particularly if it’s from an at-home test. Both of those figures are trending down after the brief winter surge in the end of December and beginning of January. That seems to be a trend nationally as well, as the White House announced in January that the national emergency will end in May.

February saw a decrease in deaths caused by COVID-19 across the state. There were 899 reported in January, but only 490 reported in February. The month-over-month decrease comes as the virus is still spreading at a high rate, but infections have been far less severe than years past.

During the last month, though, as Pennsylvania approaches the 3-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 cases in the state, the total death toll did top the grim 50,000-death milestone. The total currently sits at 50,281 COVID-19-related deaths in Pennsylvania since early March 2020.

Locally, the Lehigh Valley reported a total of 27 deaths in the last month, averaging just under one per day. Sixteen of those deaths were reported in Lehigh County, and 11 were reported in Northampton County. The counties’ respective death tolls are up to 1,392 and 1,250. Lehigh County has the 11th-highest death toll among all Pennsylvania counties, and Northampton County has the 13th-highest. They’re separated by Chester County, which has a mark of 1,334.

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