‘The numbers prove it’: Allegheny County officials point to rising vaccination rates, falling cases

Eighty percent of Allegheny County’s adult population is at least partially vaccinated against covid-19, officials said Wednesday, a rate that continues to rise as the number of cases and positivity rates continue to rise. continue to decline.

“Let’s get those last 20%,” said Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Director, “so that we can all feel safe – we can travel, we can go to work, we can be with family – so that we can do whatever we want to be able to do. ”

The county has seen 97 new cases in the past seven days, and a total of 28 people were hospitalized with the virus on Wednesday.

“We are in a very good situation right now, and the numbers prove it,” said Dr Debra Bogen, director of health for Allegheny County.

The county averages about 13 new cases per day, a number she says is not deceptively low.

“We don’t have an artificially low rate because of the lower number of people tested,” she said. “People are still being tested, the difference is that our positivity rate has dropped to around 1%.”

More than that, she said, hospitalizations are also down.

“We know that there will always be a certain percentage of people who, when they contract this virus, end up in the hospital,” Bogen said. “If there were a lot of unidentified cases, we would see hospitalizations, which we are not.”

Two cases of the delta variant have been identified in the county, Bogen said: one in an April test sample and another from May.

Even so, she said, cases remain low here, although the variant has presumably been present in the county since April and May.

If people are worried, she said, “it’s perfectly fine to wear a mask even if you don’t have to.” She said she agreed with federal guidelines that masking is not necessary for those who are fully vaccinated and not at high risk of complications.

Bogen, who is fully vaccinated, said she continues to wear a mask indoors where she has no idea who was or was not vaccinated, such as grocery stores and retail stores. In her own home, she said, she will ask others to wear a mask if they are not vaccinated, and she will too.