Mount Nittany Medical Center COVID-19 patients mostly unvaccinated, almost double last year

COVID-19 hospitalizations at Mount Nittany Medical Center have almost doubled compared to this time last year, officials said Friday, and “the vast majority” of those patients are not vaccinated.

On Friday, the hospital was treating 17 COVID patients between the ages of 22 and 92. There has been a daily average of 17 patients this month compared to 14 in August.

“Due to this increase, we have been taking additional steps in our pandemic response plan to adjust our operations to meet the needs of the community. We continue to adjust elective surgical care as well as restrict visitation at our facilities,” Tiffany Cabibbo, Mount Nittany Health’s chief nursing officer and executive vice president, patient care services, said in a statement.

“The COVID vaccine is highly effective and our best defense against the transmission of COVID in our community. We strongly encourage everyone to receive it.”

The picture in Centre County

Centre County continues to see rising cases, with daily totals reaching their highest level since April. There were 114 cases reported Thursday, the first day cases topped 100 since April 22.

In all, there were 433 cases during the week of Sept. 5-11, 144 more than the previous seven days.

These are the week’s daily case totals:

• Sept 5: 93
• Sept. 6: 17
• Sept. 7: 39
• Sept. 8: 16
• Sept. 9: 114
• Sept 10: 68
• Sept. 11: 86

A death was reported Sept. 5 to bring the total to 232. As of Saturday, the county has had a total of 18,316 cases — 16,599 confirmed and 1,717 probable — along with 76,848 negative tests.

Penn State sees weekly increase

Over the most recent seven days of data, from Sept. 2-8, Penn State reported 147 cases of COVID-19 — from 138 students and nine employees. Those numbers are a significant increase from last week’s 99 cases, but still compare favorably to this time last year, when there were 652 positives between Sept. 4-10.

Based on data from the university’s COVID-19 dashboard, 60 students are in quarantine and isolation, meaning capacity now stands at 26%. And the testing positivity rate over the most recent seven days is at 1.6%

PA reports rising case totals

Cases are increasing across the state as well, reaching highs not seen since mid-April. During the week of Sept. 5-11, there were 26,939 cases, including a one-day high of 5,131 on Sept. 11. During the previous week, there were 24,674 cases. (Daily case totals had last exceeded 5,000 on April 17, at 5,114.)

As of Saturday, there have been a total of 1,343,444 cases and 5,245,252 negative tests.

Comparing Sept. 10 to the previous Friday, there were 183 additional deaths reported across the state to bring the total to 28,535. The week before, there were 172 new fatalities. An additional 31 deaths were listed Saturday on the state’s COVID app.

Hospitalizations continue to rise. As of Sept. 11, there were a total of 2,196 COVID-19 patients, according to the state dashboard. During the past month, the number of patients has almost doubled. Patient numbers haven’t been this high since May.

The vaccination situation

Pennsylvanians 12 and older are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, Mount Nittany Health is offering a third vaccine dose to people with compromised immune systems. Mount Nittany still offers first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Appointments can be made at mountnittany.org/COVID.

Centre Volunteers in Medicine is also providing first, second and third doses of the vaccine. CVIM offers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Visit cvim.net to find out when vaccinations are offered.

For other vaccine providers, go to vaccines.gov.

As of Friday, 12,392,854 vaccine doses had been given, including 51,322 additional doses to people with compromised immune systems (excluding Philadelphia). An average of 14,700 people were vaccinated each day during the week, a decrease of 3,100 from the previous seven days.

As of Saturday, Pennsylvania ranks fifth among the states for total doses administered (California, Texas, Florida and New York are the top four, while Illinois is No. 6), the CDC said. The CDC also said 67% of Pennsylvanians 18 and older are fully vaccinated. CDC figures cover all 67 counties in the state.

Every county in Pennsylvania is in the CDC’s high level of community transmission as of Saturday. The CDC recommends that everyone in high transmission areas “should wear a mask in public, indoor settings.”

As of Saturday, the CDC said:

• 60.5% of Centre County’s total population received at least one vaccine dose with 52% fully vaccinated.
• 67.4% of residents 18 and older received at least one dose with 58% fully vaccinated.
• 99.9% of residents 65 and older received at least one dose with 89.3% fully vaccinated.

How are children faring?

During this school year, the state will report weekly case counts in children ages 0-4 and 5-18. These cases “are not necessarily cases exposed in school, early learning or child care settings,” the Health Department said, and “may have occurred in a variety of settings including the community, household/family, or the school setting.”

During the week of Sept. 2-8, there were 13 cases in Centre County youngsters ages 0-4, and 73 cases in children ages 5-18. Looking at all of Centre County’s cases during that week, 25% were in children ages 0-18. Since Aug. 16, there have been a total of 19 cases in the 0-4 age group and 171 in the 5-18 age group.

Statewide, there were almost 10 times as many cases in the 5-18 age group in the first week of September than the same time last year, the Health Department said. In the week of Sept. 2-8, there were 5,371 cases; during the week of Sept. 4-10, 2020, there were a total of 574 cases.

This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Mount Nittany Medical Center COVID-19 patients mostly unvaccinated, almost double last year."