On Friday, the Allegheny County Health Department reported 33 new COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours along with 1,322 new cases.
Of the new cases, 749 are confirmed and 573 are probable.
On Thursday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced new virus mitigation restrictions due to the increasing case numbers in recent weeks throughout the state.
On Monday (Dec 7), the governor urged residents to follow safety guidelines that were already in place as he said the number of virus cases in Pennsylvania had reached "critical levels" causing some hospitals to be overwhelmed.
"Already we're hearing stories about hospitals forced to divert patients to other treatment facilities because of full emergency rooms and overwhelming needs," he said.
The following day, UPMC said their hospitals were not overwhelmed. "We're busy, but we are not overwhelmed in any way," said Leslie Davis, Senior Vice President of UPMC. "There's really a calm feeling among our hospitals, whether it's north-central Pennsylvania, central Pennsylvania, the Altoona region, the western Maryland region; these are areas that have become much busier."
Since March of 2020, there have been 38,029 COVID-19 cases in the county, 2,413 hospitalizations and 658 deaths.
