One Year Since Centre County’s First COVID-19 Positive, Local Case Total Reaches 13,834

On March 20, 2020, the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed the first COVID-19 case in Centre County, two weeks after the state’s first positive was reported.

One year later, the county has recorded 13,834 cases, including 85 new positives reported on Saturday. Sixty of the new cases on Saturday were in the State College and University Park zip codes, which have accounted for more than 7,600 of the county’s total positives.

Statewide, Pennsylvania added 4,213 cases, bringing the total to 984,515.

Local case increases for the past four days have been the highest since early February, the spike coming as Penn State sees an uptick in cases. For tests administered between March 12-18, the University Park campus had 188 student positives and 11 employee positives with a seven-day positivity rate of 2.9%, according to Penn State’s updated COVID-19 dashboard. Another 55 positives from university testing prior to March 12 also were reported this week.

Centre County has had a total of 63,706 negative test results, including 137 reported on Saturday. Across Pennsylvania, 10,590 new negatives bring the statewide total to 4,047,016.

For the week of March 12-18, the county’s PCR testing positivity rate was 7.0%, up from 4.4% the previous seven days, according to the updated DOH early warning monitoring dashboard. Pennsylvania’s statewide PCR testing positivity rate was 6.5%, up from 5.7% the previous week.

An 89-year-old man who died on April 16, 2020 was Centre County’s first death attributed to the virus. Since then, the county has had 213 COVID-19-related deaths. DOH reported no new COVID-19 deaths among county residents on Saturday.

With 33 new COVID-19 deaths reported statewide, Pennsylvania’s total is 24,774.

According to DOH’s hospital preparedness dashboard, which includes Mount Nittany Medical Center and rehabilitation hospitals, 19 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in Centre County, including four in intensive care and three on ventilators.

Statewide, 1,529 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, including 318 in intensive care and 189 on ventilators.

Centre County nursing and personal care homes added one COVID-19 case among residents and one among employees. A total of 17 long-term care facilities in the county have had a combined 724 resident cases, 152 employee cases and 163 resident deaths.

An estimated 92% of COVID-19 patients in the state have recovered, per a health department calculation.

A total of 36,472 people in Centre County have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The total includes 22,136 who are fully covered with both required doses, according to health department data.

Among Pennsylvania’s total cases, 841,294 are confirmed and 143,221 are probable. In Centre County, 12,630 are confirmed and 1,204 are probable.

Centre County’s cases by zip code, according to available DOH data:

*Note: Changes are in brackets. Specific numbers for zip codes with 1-4 cases are redacted by the health department.

16801 (State College): 4,849 confirmed [+28], 351 probable [+2]

16823 (Bellefonte and Pleasant Gap): 2,291 confirmed [+7], 188 probable [+1]

16803 (State College): 1,223 confirmed [+9], 142 probable

16802 (University Park): 989 confirmed [+20], 50 probable [+1]

16866 (Philipsburg): 774 confirmed [+1], 110 probable [+1]

16870 (Port Matilda): 422 confirmed [+3], 63 probable

16841 (Howard): 345 confirmed, 34 probable

16845 (Karthaus): 259 confirmed, 9 probable

16828 (Centre Hall): 253 confirmed, 29 probable [+1]

16827 (Boalsburg): 243 confirmed [+1], 36 probable

16875 (Spring Mills): 240 confirmed, 32 probable

16844 (Julian): 177 confirmed, 19 probable

16853 (Milesburg): 119 confirmed, 6 probable

16877 (Warrior’s Mark): 98 confirmed, 15 probable

16874 (Snow Shoe): 95 confirmed, 13 probable

16865 (Pennsylvania Furnace): 76 confirmed, 7 probable

16826 (Blanchard): 66 confirmed, 6 probable

16829 (Clarence): 60 confirmed [+1], 13 probable

16854 (Millheim): 60 confirmed, 5 probable

16872 (Rebersburg): 58 confirmed, 6 probable

16851 (Lemont): 52 confirmed, 5 probable

16820 (Aaronsburg): 47 confirmed, 13 probable

16859 (Moshannon): 42 confirmed, 1-4 probable

16856 (Mingoville): 28 confirmed, 6 probable

16868 (Pine Grove Mills): 26 confirmed, 1-4 probable

16832 (Coburn): 25 confirmed, 1-4 probable

16677 (Sandy Ridge): 23 confirmed [+1], 1-4 probable

16852 (Madisonburg): 17 confirmed, 1-4 probable

16863 (Orviston): 13 confirmed

16835 (Fleming): 11 confirmed, 6 probable

16804 (State College): 10 confirmed

16882 (Woodward): 8 confirmed

16805 (State College): 1-4 confirmed

Among Centre County’s bordering counties, Blair now has 10,898 [+13] total cases, Clearfield has 6,811 [+29], Union has 5,359 [+8], Mifflin has 4,697 [+4], Huntingdon has 4,484 [+8] and Clinton has 2,979 [+18].