Centre County drops back to medium COVID level. Here are the 14 PA counties at high
After a week at high, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved Centre County back to a medium COVID-19 community level.
It is one of 33 Pennsylvania counties at medium as of Thursday, the federal agency’s latest update to the guidance.
Weekly COVID-19 community levels are based on new reported cases and hospital admissions per 100,000 people (seven-day totals) and the percent of occupied COVID-19 hospital beds (a seven-day average).
Across the Keystone State, 14 counties are considered at a high community level. In these areas, the CDC recommends wearing a mask in indoor, public spaces.
The counties at high as of Sept. 16 are Mercer, Crawford, Warren, McKean, Armstrong, Indiana, Mifflin, Clinton, Columbia, Sullivan, Bradford, Susquehanna, Wayne and Lackawanna.
The number of counties at high is an increase from last week, when nine were scored as such, including Centre.
Under a separate CDC metric, community transmission, all the state’s counties except two — Delaware and Philadelphia — are considered at high.
COVID-19 in Centre County
Centre County reported 394 new cases for the week ending Sept. 13, according to the CDC’s dashboard. The case rate stands at 206.92 infections per 100,000 individuals, and the positivity rate has dropped nearly 5% to 18.35%.
The number of new tests performed dropped slightly this week to 1,845, though both this figure and positivity rate are likely undercounts given the prevalence of at-home testing.
Area school districts are not requiring K-12 students to wear a mask, nor is Penn State, though the university expanded isolation areas for on-campus students in expectation of a rise in cases amid the start of the fall semester. The university previously discontinued its COVID dashboard where it publicly reported known cases.
The CDC is recording seven new hospital admissions for COVID treatment in the last week in the county, and as of Thursday, Mount Nittany Health reported nine people hospitalized at the facility with COVID-19. They range in age from 24 to 87.
COVID-19 in Pennsylvania
The CDC’s seven-day metrics for the state as a whole indicate 17,506 new reported cases of COVID and 139 new deaths. Those individuals are part of the 46,970 Pennsylvanians who have died of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
The state’s positivity rate is the in 15 to 19.9% range for the past week, per the CDC.
In recent weeks Pennsylvania has reported relatively fewer new cases, though this week there were around 1,000 more than the week prior. This comes as an updated booster to better protect against the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 is made available to more Americans.
Those ages 12 and older who have completed their primary series and have not received a jab in the last two months are eligible to get the updated shot.
Rollout continues across the U.S., and options to get your updated booster are available in Centre County and central Pennsylvania.
The CDC reports 74.6% of the population ages 5 and older in Pennsylvania are fully vaccinated. In Centre County, that figure falls to 63.7%. Nearly 40% of Centre County residents ages 50 and older are fully vaccinated through their second booster dose.