Allegheny County Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen said recent COVID-19 case counts have been encouraging.
"The average daily case county dropped slightly to 240 cases a day, over the past seven days. Positivity rate and hospitalizations continue to decrease slowly."
But she believes those numbers need to be lower as Pennsylvania gets rid of the restrictions, aside from masking, on May 31st saying, "although cases are dropping, they aren't dropping as quickly as I would like. I would like to see cases drop significantly as we approach the end of the month"
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said vaccines are the key to doing that safely.
"As everybody gets vaccinated, we can get back to normal and I think businesses, offices...and family gatherings can get back to normal," said Fitzgerald.
On Wednesday, the county reported 158 new COVID-19 cases and nine new deaths. The deaths ranged from April 21st to May 1st.
Fitzgerald said this May 31st will look a lot different than last year's May 31st.