UPDATED: 2:36 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania Department of Health officials say there are almost 1,300 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to more than 34,000 — a rise of more than 9,000 people since last week Tuesday.
The commonwealth has also seen a surge in deaths. Officials confirmed 360 new deaths across Pennsylvania since Monday, bringing the total to 1,564. This a huge jump from Monday's count of 92 deaths.
Not all of the deaths happened in one 24-hour period. The health department has been revising its numbers upward because it is now counting probable deaths, or deaths in which a coroner or medical examiner listed COVID-19 as the cause or contributing cause, but the deceased were not tested for the virus.
Officials have said the updated numbers are part of the department's efforts to reconcile data provided by hospitals, health care systems, county and municipal health departments, and long-term care living facilities, with the department's own records of births and deaths.
More than 132,000 patients in the state have tested negative for coronavirus to date.
#COVID19 Update (as of 4/21/20 at 12:00 am):• 1,296 additional positive cases of COVID-19• 34,528 total cases statewide• 1,564 total deaths statewide• 132,323 patients tested negative to dateCounty-specific information + statewide map: https://t.co/7pzosEXhEX
— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) April 21, 2020The health department has started releasing ZIP code-level information about cases of coronavirus.
State health officials published an interactive map on Monday that shows the number of confirmed cases of the virus and the number of negative virus tests. The map is searchable by county and ZIP code. The county data also shows the number of COVID-19 deaths.
Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said even residents in communities with a relatively low number of confirmed cases should continue to heed social distancing rules, noting a lack of widespread testing means the actual number of people with the virus is far higher than what shows up in the statistics.
The virus has been spreading faster in recent days in less populated counties like Columbia, Northumberland, Juniata and Susquehanna.
Gov. Tom Wolf said the state has made sufficient progress in its fight against the virus to begin gradually reopening some businesses in early May. Republicans are pushing a more aggressive timetable.
Less-impacted areas may reopen soon
Regions of Pennsylvania that have seen a relatively low number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus might be able to reopen "in a fairly robust" way on May 8, Wolf said Tuesday.
In a conference call with reporters, he said he intends to loosen restrictions on people and businesses in much the same way he imposed them over the past month: Gradually, and county by county.
"There is not one size that fits all. We can start to reopen the state in, I think, some areas in a fairly robust way, in other areas less so," Wolf said. "If I were in Philadelphia, I probably would not want my government to be saying, 'OK, everything seems to be just perfect right now.' "
More than half of all people who have tested positive for the virus statewide live in Philadelphia and its four suburban counties. Many rural counties, by contrast, have been minimally impacted. Five counties have reported just one or two cases.
Wolf has said the state has made sufficient progress in its fight against the virus to begin gradually reopening some businesses in early May, depending on the availability of widespread diagnostic testing and the capacity of the health care system. Republicans are pushing a more aggressive timetable.
Levine said last week that contact tracing — identifying people who have been exposed to an infected person so they can be quarantined — will be "really important" as Pennsylvania emerges from a pandemic that has killed more than 1,500 statewide. But Wolf said Tuesday there's no budget for contact tracing.
"We don't have a lot of good leads on that at this point and we certainly do not have a budget," he said.
Wolf says over the next few weeks his team will come up with more specific guidelines on reopening.
"What I'm going to be looking at is, are we making progress, in terms of new cases? Are we making progress in terms of the deadly nature of this virus?" he asked.
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KYW Newsradio's Eric Walter and Justin Udo, as well as the Associated Press, contributed to this report.
