Pennsylvania is seeing an increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in July, after the state had its highest rates of new COVID-19 cases in April, followed by its lowest rates in June. There were an average of 776 new cases each day the week of July 7 to 13, with an average positivity rate of 4 percent.
The increase mirrors national trends, but health officials said Pennsylvania has managed to avoid the surge of new cases seen in some other states.
“Pennsylvania—I’d like to highlight this—is not seeing the cases of thousands upon thousands per day that are being seen in other states such as Florida, such as Texas, such as Arizona, such as California, South Carolina and others,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine at a COVID-19 update briefing.
The increase also reflects more testing, Dr. Levine said, which catches more asymptomatic cases.
Pennsylvania performed 307,730 diagnostic tests in June, according to daily new test numbers. Given Pennsylvania’s population of about 12.8 million people, about 2.4 percent of the population received testing that month, above the goal of 256,141 tests for June, or 2 percent of the population, set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’re very pleased with the increased amount of testing that we have, but we’re not satisfied,” Dr. Levine said. “We want to continue to increase testing.”
The state doesn’t have a set goal to test a certain percentage of the population each month, but is looking toward testing 4 to 6 percent of the population in coming months.
Ideally, widespread population-based testing could catch asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carriers of COVID-19, Dr. Levine said, to help them isolate before they infect others. Testing most people on a monthly basis, however, won’t be possible until scientists can develop a more rapid, accurate and widely available test.
In the meantime officials urge Pennsylvanians to wear masks, social distance and avoid travel to states with rising COVID-19 cases.
“As much as our efforts are about laws and mandates and requirements, they’re actually mostly about your choices,” Dr. Levine said.
The Department of Health has created a list of states with travel restrictions from which visitors are recommended to quarantine for 14 days upon returning to Pennsylvania. Those states currently are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.