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COVID-19

Earnings a light in pandemic darkness

Corporate earnings are likely to end this year with a fourth-straight quarterly decline, but a profit rebound may be appearing on the horizon, analysts say. Despite the continuing struggle with the virus pandemic, profits for companies in the S&P 500 held up surprisingly well in the third-quarter. That’s a signal to investors looking for clues as to how companies can see their way to a more normal post-pandemic economy. While the S&P showed an overall 6% drop in earnings last quarter, it was significantly better than analysts’ June forecast of a 24% drop. Airlines, hotels and ...

State’s hospital beds filling quickly

Hospital beds are filling up and medical staffs are being stretched to the limit as Pennsylvania’s health care system copes with a growing number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. At UPMC Altoona, all 14 medical ICU beds are taken by virus patients, while other virus patients are crowding into other units, said Paula Stellabotte, a medical ICU nurse. “We don’t have enough (staff) in the whole building,” Stellabotte told The Associated Press. “We did just get some travel nurses brought in, which will hopefully help. We have some people who have left because they don’t ...

Surge affecting city’s staffing

The Altoona area has the most lax attitude toward the coronavirus that employees of a testing firm have seen, Altoona’s emergency management chief said in a recent report. “(AMI) remarked that they have done testing all over the country,” the report said. “They have been staying in Altoona hotels and using Altoona restaurants and stated that the Altoona area has the most laxed attitude towards the virus they have seen anywhere.” AMI Expeditionary Healthcare operated a temporary COVID-19 testing site in the days before Thanksgiving at the Blair County Convention ...

Decked halls, closed doors

For more than six decades, Blair Garden Club members have used their talents to create a unique visual delight inside Baker Mansion during the Christmas holidays. This year, members decked the halls to the theme “It’s a Victorian Christmas,” but few people had the chance to see all ...

Blair office to get help with COVID-19 reports

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County will be hiring two part-time employees in its human resources office to assist with the increasing number of COVID-19 reports. The county office is fielding about 30 to 40 emails a day and a steady flow of phone calls from the county’s 550 employees, Human Resources Director Katherine Swigart reported Thursday to the salary board. “The reality is that you have three people in HR who are being run ragged,” Swigart said. “We need helpers.” The salary board, made up of commissioners Bruce Erb, Amy Webster, Laura Burke and Controller A.C. ...

State’s caseload worrying Levine

Yet another state new-case record for COVID-19, along with a record for coronavirus hospitalizations and possibly intensive care patients, lent urgency to Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine’s call Thursday that everyone shares responsibility for keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed. The case record leaped from last Friday’s 8,425 to 11,406 on Thursday — 5.5 times the top number in the spring, while hospitalizations neared 5,000 and the total for ICU patients climbed above 1,000. “We all have a role to play in what is happening in the hospitals,” Levine said during a ...