A coronavirus-testing tent is set up outside of Penn State Health's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center on April 10, 2020.
Kate Landis / PA Post
Updated: 2020-04-23 18:12:50
Your daily coronavirus update: Pennsylvania slashes COVID-19 death toll by 201
270 probable deaths have been removed pending further investigation
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The Associated Press
Kate Landis / PA Post
A coronavirus-testing tent is set up outside of Penn State Health's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center on April 10, 2020.
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The Pennsylvania Department of Health slashed the state’s COVID-19 death toll on Thursday by 201, saying probable deaths it had previously included in the count were eliminated after further investigation.
The overall death toll now stands at 1,421, down from 1,622 reported a day earlier.
Courtesy Office of Gov. Wolf
The American and Pennsylvania flags over the capitol building in Harrisburg on April 7, 2020. Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the state flag to fly at half staff to honor victims of the coronavirus outbreak.
The number of deaths confirmed by a positive virus test actually rose overnight by 69, to 1,394. But Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Thursday that 270 probable deaths that had been added to the death toll in recent days have been removed after further investigation.
“This verification process is very intensive and under normal circumstances it can take months to complete,” she said. “We continue to refine the data that we are collecting to provide everyone this information in as near time as we possibly can. This is really difficult with thousands of reports each day.”
State health officials had recently changed the way they count COVID-19 deaths — now including probable deaths along with confirmed deaths — which resulted in a doubling of the state’s death toll in just four days. A probable death is one in which a coroner or medical examiner listed COVID-19 as the cause or contributing cause, but the deceased was not tested for the virus.
Officials have said they are trying to reconcile data provided by hospitals, health care systems, county and municipal health departments and long-term care living facilities with the department’s own records. Some county coroners have accused the state Department of Health of botching the numbers.
Statewide, more than 1,369 additional people tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to more than 37,000, the health department reported Thursday.
In central Pennsylvania counties, the death count has decreased by a total of 30, even as new deaths were added to the tally. Three new deaths were reported in Dauphin, one in Berks and one in Cumberland. Death counts went down by 14 in Lancaster County, nine in Franklin, seven in York, two in Lebanon, two in Schuylkill and one in Adams.
In all, 6,381 people in central Pennsylvania have tested positive for the virus since the first cases were reported in the region on March 13.
- Adams: 95 cases, including 1 death
- Berks: 2212 cases, including 86 deaths
- Columbia: 245 cases, including 7 deaths
- Cumberland: 227 cases, including 7 deaths
- Dauphin: 445 cases, including 16 deaths
- Franklin: 151 cases, including 1 death
- Juniata: 77 cases
- Lancaster: 1359 cases, including 72 deaths
- Lebanon: 544 cases, including 6 deaths
- Mifflin: 24 cases
- Northumberland: 82 cases
- Perry: 23 cases, including 1 death
- Schuylkill: 290 cases, including 5 deaths
- Snyder: 31 cases, including 1 death
- Union: 30 cases
- York: 546 cases, including 7 deaths
Other coronavirus-related developments in Pennsylvania:
Penn State Health sets up COVID-19 outpatient clinics
Courtesy of Penn State Health
Dr. Eliana Hempel dons personal protective equipment before entering a negative pressure area to visit with a patient on Thursday, April 16, 2020. Penn State Health Medical Group has turned the West Campus Health and Wellness Center into a dedicated clinic to care for patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.
To care for patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19, as well as those suspected to have the disease, Penn State Health has opened outpatient clinics at its Hershey Medical Center campus and in Muhlenberg, Berks County.
Each clinic includes exam rooms, radiology units and a room to conduct ultrasounds. They can accommodate five patients at a time.
These clinics are not available for drop-in appointments. Patients must be referred by their health care provider.
Unemployment claims continue to surge
More than 1.5 million Pennsylvanians have filed for unemployment, more than any other state but California, since business closures began in mid-March to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
In all, 23 percent of the commonwealth’s workforce has submitted claims, the fifth-highest share in the nation, according to PA Post’s analysis of the latest numbers from the federal Department of Labor.
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo
Using part of the Pittsburgh International Airport parking lot, that has been left vacant by the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, load boxes of food into cars during a drive-up food distribution, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Nearly 200,000 claims were submitted last week alone in Pennsylvania, according to the department’s statistics released today.
Those numbers don’t include gig workers and self-proprietors in most states, pending the creation of new filing systems.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry launched its web portal for self-employed workers last weekend. Users reported confusion over how to complete some sections of the application and an inability to complete the process if they indicated receiving a W-2, an issue state officials say they’re working to fix.
Contact tracing
Levine said a state plan to do contact tracing to limit the impact of COVID-19 infection is in the works and will rely partly on volunteers.
She said much of the work will be done by public health nurses, along with county and municipal health departments, hospitals and health systems.
Levine said it will also use volunteers.
Contact tracing, which identifies the people that COVID-19 patients have been in contact with, locates those who may be infected so they can be tested and isolated.
Levine did not say when the plan will be released, but a Department of Health spokesman said the agency is starting that work in areas where stay-at-home orders may be lifted first.
The department is still trying to determine exactly how many people will be needed, the spokesman said.
But, he said, with 1,200 new cases per day in Pennsylvania, it would take 7,200 hours each day to conduct contact tracing if each case involves 10 people who were potentially exposed. That would take 600 workers dedicated to contact tracing, he said.
Cumberland County furloughs 156 workers
The Cumberland County Commissioners voted to temporarily furlough 156 county employees, effective Sunday.
In a statement, the commissioners said they worked with each department to determine which employees were essential to sustain government operations. Employees of the Cumberland County Prison, Claremont Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, coroner’s office and the Department of Public Safety are not affected by the furloughs.
The reduction in staff will save the county $335,000 per month.
Lebanon VA sterilizing N95 masks
The Lebanon VA Medical Center has implemented a new procedure to sterilize and reuse N95 masks for its own health care workers, as well as other medical centers within the Veterans Integrated Service Network 4.
The center will be using a process that received emergency use authorization from the the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide to disinfect masks. The center estimates its team can sterilize 500 masks each week.
“While our local supply chain remains strong as we assist other facilities in our network, this innovation builds further depth in a crisis supply level of N95 masks if local supplies become challenged,” Medical Center Director Robert W. Callahan Jr. said in a press release.
Giant to hire 3,000 workers
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
A robot named Marty cleans the floors at a Giant grocery story in Harrisburg.
The Giant Company announced plans to hire an additional 3,000 employees to meet growing demand at its grocery stores amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Staff will be hired for positions in stores as well as the company’s online grocery service Giant Direct, which offers pickup and delivery.
Curbside liquor sales
Pennsylvania’s state-owned liquor stores have processed about 25,000 curbside orders since that program began on Monday, for sales totaling about $2.3 million, the agency said.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board said Thursday that its online order system also continues to expand its reach, from about 4,000 orders a day last week to more than 33,000 daily since Saturday, with five-day sales of more than $3 million.
More than 100 of the agency’s nearly 600 stores are currently filling online orders for delivery as well as curbside orders by appointment.
The online ordering system has been able to meet just a fraction of the public demand in Pennsylvania, where the stores retail nearly all hard liquor and much of the wine. Before the COVID-19 shutdown, the liquor stores handled about 180,000 transactions a day.
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