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Blair, Cambria coronavirus numbers climbing

Blair County reaches ‘moderate’ transmission status

While Blair and Cambria counties’ COVID-19 numbers rose in nearly all categories on the state’s early warning system dashboard, numbers for the surrounding counties declined or remained fairly steady.

The website update Friday shows Blair County had 71 confirmed cases for the seven days ending Aug. 20, up from 50 for the previous seven-day period ending Aug. 13.

Correspondingly, the rate of infection per 100,000 residents rose from 40.8 to 58, putting Blair County into the moderate community transmission category.

Average daily hospitalizations for COVID-19 nearly doubled from 8.4 for the seven days ending Aug. 13 to 16.3 for the most recent seven-day period.

The number of hospitalized patients on ventilators doubled from an average of 2.1 to 4.4 per day for the seven-day periods.

The percentage of people testing through PCR testing rose from 3 percent to 5.6 percent.

The one metric declining for Blair County was the percentage of emergency room visits for COVID-19, which fell from 1.2 percent on Aug. 13 to 0.4 percent for the period ending Wednesday.

Cambria County’s case total rose from 35 to 50 for the two seven-day periods, moving its rate per 100,000 from 26.6 to 38.

Average hospitalizations rose from 8.1 to 10 with virtually no increase in the number of patients on ventilators, and emergency room visits dipped slightly.

Bedford County’s trends were opposite, with the number of new cases declining from 12 to nine for the two seven-day periods and its average per 100,000 people falling from 24.9 percent to 18.7 percent. Bedford’s one increasing metric is on the average number of emergency room visits for the coronavirus, which doubled from 0.8 percent to 1.6 percent.

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