All Chester County COVID-19 Measures Fall This Week: Update

CHESTER COUNTY, PA — All five of the COVID-19 metrics the state health department reports each week were down this week in Chester County.

After last week's uptick in COVID-19 cases, there was a drop in new cases this week, which fell from 922 last week to 779 in the week ended April 23.

Cases tracked through April has looked like this: In the week ended April 1, there had been 978 new cases, and on April 8, 893, then on April 15, 922 new cases, and on April 23, 779.

That decrease by 143 cases this week continues a larger downward trend in Chester County over several weeks, with last week as the exception; there was an increase of 14 new cases for the week ended April 15.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health weekly update on COVID-19 metrics also showed Chester County's incidence rate had fallen in the last week. On April 15, the incidence rate per 100,00 residents was 175.6 and on April 22 it was 148.4. It had been 170.1 per 100,000 on April 8, so this week's measure represents a turn.

The positivity rate for COVID-19 tests given was down for this week and is down almost 2 full percentage points since the beginning of the month. The trend looks like this across April: This week, it was reported at 7.2 percent. Last week it was 8.7 percent. The week before that, ending April 8, it was 8.0 percent, and on April 1 it was 9.1 percent, according to the PA Department of Health.

Hospitalizations per day, on average, fell slightly, from 73.6 for the week ended April 15 to 71.4 for the week ended April 22. The month's hospitalization numbers did not decline steadily: There were 47.6 in the week ended April 1, then an increase to 67 on April 8, and to 73.6 on April 15. This week's average daily hospitalizations of 71.4 is a decrease from last week, but still higher than at the beginning of April.

The metric that fell most steeply this week was the average number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators each day. That number dropped from 7.3 in the week ended April 15 to 2.9 in the week ended April 22. In the week ended April 15, there were 8.6 COVID-19 patients on ventilators, and there were 7.3 in the week ended April 8, the health department reported.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, 34,668 have tested positive for COVID-19 in Chester County, according to the Chester County Health Department. In that time 763 have died here.

New COVID-19 cases statewide went from 25,339 last week to 21,167 this week.

The state's incidence rate per 100,00 residents rose from 197.9 to 165.3 in the most recent seven-day period, the DOH reported today.

Percent positivity dropped a full percentage point statewide, from 9.6 in the week ended April 15 to 8.6 percent in the week ended April 22.

The surge-and-fall of COVID-19 measures comes as Chester County has opened vaccine registration to anyone over 16, and the county's residents are increasingly vaccinated. Last week the Chester County Health Department reported 54 percent of eligible persons in Chester County were at least partially vaccinated.

Information on Chester County's COVID-19 vaccine program and online registration can be found at chesco.org/covidvaccine.

Read last week's COVID-19 update story here.

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