COVID-19 Cases, Rates Down This Week In Chesco: Weekly Updates

CHESTER COUNTY, PA — COVID-19 metrics for Chester County look like a kiddie carnival ride as winter has turned into spring, with high numbers falling at the beginning of 2021, then turning late in the month of March and spiking the first week of April, but this week diminishing again.

New COVID-19 cases, as well as incidence and positivity rates, all fell in the past seven days, after three weeks of climbing, according to today's updated report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Chester County's new cases of COVID-19 fell from 978 for the week ending April 1 to 872 in the seven-day period ended April 8. That's a decrease of 106 cases, following a three-week spike in metrics. Last week cases spiked and 320 new positive tests were reported.

Those 872 new cases in the last seven days — although a decrease over last week's count that neared 1,000 — still outpace the previous two weeks of COVID-19 case counts. On March 25 the DOH reported 631 new cases in Chester County for the week, and on March 18 there were 508 new cases for the week.

The COVID-19 incidence rate in Chester County fell along with cases in the last week, after a similar steady rise over the last month. For the week ended April 8 the county's incidence rate was 166.1 per 100,000 residents, down from 186.3 in the previous seven-day period ending April 1. The decrease comes after a month of climbing rates; it was 73.5 the week ending March 11, and 96.8 the week ending March 18, then 120 the following week ending March 25.

The positivity rate fell from 9.1 to 8.0 percent over the last week, after several weeks of rising percentages of positive tests. Positivity rate gives a more accurate picture of what the virus is doing, alongside raw case counts and incidence rates, because it accounts for the percentage of cases based on how many COVID-19 tests were given.

The positivity rate for the week ended April 1 was 9.1 percent in Chester County, up from 6 percent in the week ended March 25. On March 11, the positivity rate was reported at 4.3 percent in Chesco. It had climbed each week since March 11, so the drop in positivity rate for the last seven days is a turn for the better.

Average daily hospitalizations were up in this week's report, a rise that began the week ended March 25, one week behind the beginning of the rise of other metrics on March 11.

Hospitalizations were up from 47.6 in the week ended April 1 to 67 in the week ended April 8. That is a rise of nearly 20 persons hospitalized for COVID-19 across the county in the last week. Hospitalization rose by 9 in the previous week.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, 32,561 have tested positive for COVID-19 in Chester County, according to the Chester County Health Department. In that time 750 have died here.

The surge-and-fall of COVID-19 measures comes as Chester County has opened vaccine registration to those in Phases 1B, 1C, and Phase 2 and vaccinations are increasing.

As of April 8, the Pennsylvania DOH reported 101,007 people in Chester County have been partially vaccinated, and 91,085 have been fully vaccinated with Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

In all 160,681 in Chesco have received at least a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by late last week; that number includes 40,035 who've been partially vaccinated by the Chester County Health Department and 22,300 people who've been fully vaccinated by the county health department. The county's update for this week had not yet been published Friday afternoon.

Chester County has sent out emails to all who are registered for a vaccine with the county, asking that any who've been vaccinated elsewhere please remove themselves from the list.
Information on Chester County's COVID-19 vaccine program and online registration can be found at chesco.org/covidvaccine.

Make sure you know what's happening in your town. Sign up to get Patch emails and don't miss any local news: https://patch.com/subscribe.