All But 1 PA County In COVID Red Zone: White House Task Force

PENNSYLVANIA — All but one of Pennsylvania's 67 counties are in the red zone when it comes to the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, the White House Coronavirus Task Force said in its most recent state-level report. Red zones have more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents and a diagnostic test positivity result of above 10 percent.

The most recent report, made available by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, is dated Dec. 27.

The only Pennsylvania county not experiencing a red zone-level outbreak is Wyoming, which is classified as being in the orange zone for cases. Counties in the orange zone reported between 51 and 100 new cases per 100,000 residents and a diagnostic test positivity result between 8 and 10 percent.

Recent data shows Pennsylvania’s control of the epidemic is "tenuous and transmission may be increasing," the task force said in the Dec. 27 report. "It is critical to maintain urgent and widely prevalent media campaigns across all platforms and to continue enforcement of local ordinances until there is clear evidence that the epidemic is under control."

But data over the last week shows some encouraging signs, state officials said.

All six of the metrics tracked by the Department of State's Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard either decreased from the week of Dec. 25 through Dec. 31, the period for which the most recent data is available. That includes the percent positivity rate, which decreased only fractionally to hold at 15 percent. Read more about the latest state data here.

"Although the decrease in our statewide positivity rate is small, it is still encouraging," Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday. "The sacrifices Pennsylvanians took over the holidays to celebrate differently than usual and with people inside your household are signs of our continued resilience and drive to fight against COVID-19."

According to the task force's Dec. 27 report, Allegheny, Philadelphia and Montgomery counties had the highest number of new cases over the last three weeks. But 99 percent of all counties in Pennsylvania have moderate or high levels of community transmission.

Overall, Pennsylvania is classified in the red zone for both COVID-19 cases and positivity and has been since the Nov. 1 report. However, the number of counties experiencing severe outbreaks has increased rapidly in the fall and into December.

In late September, one county was classified by the task force as being in the red zone.

In the Nov. 8 report, there were nine counties classified in the red zone. Two weeks later, that number increased by 36 counties to 45. On Dec. 20, 63 counties were in the red zone, with three in the orange zone.