Montgomery County Sees Slight Rise In Coronavirus Cases

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — For several months now, coronavirus case rates have steadily fallen in Montgomery County and across Pennsylvania.

That changed last week, as the county saw its first increases in some time in a few key metrics tracked by the state's Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard system.

The county's percent positivity rate on tests had recently fallen to its lowest point since early November, as it hit 4.8 percent last week. However, in the most recently tracked data from the Department of Health, covering the week of March 12 to March 18, that rate grew to 5.7 percent.

A rate of 5 percent is considered "suppression" of the virus by the CDC.

This increase came just as the state saw a similar rise in its percent positivity rate, from 5.7 to 6.5 percent over the same period.

Other metrics also saw slight increases in the county: the total number of cases per week grew from 750 to 893, and the incidence rate per 100,000 residents increase from 90 to 107.

However, just like the state, these county increases did not translate over to the healthcare system.

All healthcare metrics continued to decrease in Montgomery County, including the average daily number of hospitalizations, which fell from 112 to 109, and the average number of patients on ventilators per day, which dropped from 12.4 to 6.1. The percentage of emergency room visits due to coronavirus symptoms fell from 0.6 percent to 0.4 percent.

It's not clear what may have caused the slight rise in cases, but state officials are urging residents to continue to be cautious, even as vaccinations increase and more and more of the population becomes immunized to the virus.