The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed 5,489 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to more than 1.39 million since the start of the pandemic. That’s up from Wednesday’s tally of 4,394 new cases.
Hospitalizations due to the virus also continued to climb, with 2,553 people hospitalized on Thursday, according to the Health Department’s COVID tracking website. Of those hospitalized with the virus, 633 are in intensive care units, and 311 were using a ventilator, state data indicated.
The department confirmed 32 new deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, bringing the total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 to 29,030 since the state of the pandemic.
Pennsylvania’s percent positivity rate remains at 8.9 percent.
As of midday Thursday, the commonwealth’s vaccination rate was 68 percent, the Health Department said in a statement.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.