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For second week in a row, Allegheny County's COVID-19 case count grows by 1,000

Katie Blackley
/
90.5 WESA

In Allegheny County, 76 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 during the week ending on May 12; that’s a substantial increase from the 41 who were hospitalized during the previous week.

The rise in hospitalizations coincides with the rise in case numbers, according to the county health department’s weekly COVID-19 report.

Start your morning with today's news on Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.

Last week, 3,732 cases of COVID-19 were reported in Allegheny County. For the past two weeks, the county health department has reported roughly 1,000 more new cases than the previous week.

These numbers are an undercount due to the prevalence of at-home testing. However, tracking case numbers helps determine the pace of transmission in a community.

Regarding wastewater surveillance, the county health department reports that concentrations of COVID-19 in Pittsburgh-area sewage have continued to increase daily between 2-8% in May with omicron being the dominant variant.

Sarah Boden covers health and science for 90.5 WESA. Before coming to Pittsburgh in November 2017, she was a reporter for Iowa Public Radio. As a contributor to the NPR-Kaiser Health News Member Station Reporting Project on Health Care in the States, Sarah's print and audio reporting frequently appears on NPR and KFF Health News.