New Bucks Co. Coronavirus Cases Highest Since May

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Over the past few days, the number of newly reported coronavirus cases in Bucks County has hit its highest numbers since the middle of May.

Over the three-day period running from Tuesday to Thursday, the county reported 124 new cases of the virus, an average of about 41 cases per day. That's well in excess of the roughly 23 cases per day that was Bucks County's target when trying to move to more lenient phases of Pennsylvania's coronavirus plan.

Dr. David Damsker, director of the Bucks County Department of Health, said the county appears to still be seeing the effects of travel, house parties and other social gatherings held during the July 4 weekend —and cases where people who got sick that way spread the virus to family members.

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More than one-third of the new cases have been attributed to household spread, Damsker said.

That's how 48 cases happened, according to Bucks County. Another 25 were infections that happened out of state, 10 were pure community spread, four were residents or employees of long-term care facilities, four were healthcare workers, two were infected at other kinds of workplaces.

Another 31 people were unable to be interviewed by county contact tracers and 47 were delayed-report cases that are at least two weeks old. (When numbers get very low, county health officials tend to separate out delayed-report cases because they can skew the appearance of what's actually happening. But they have always counted toward the county's overall numbers in terms of the state coronavirus plan and are necessary to give a full picture of test results in the county.)

No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported in Bucks County this week, leaving the death toll for July at two. Twenty-three people were hospitalized with the virus on Thursday, with three of them in critical condition and on ventilators.

"The positive news is that hospitalizations remain low," Damsker said. "Clearly we are still seeing the effects of people who traveled or went to social gatherings over the July 4 holiday and are now passing the infections along to family members. Many of our reported cases are more than two weeks old, so hopefully we will be seeing the numbers starting to drop again soon."

Since the pandemic began, Bucks County has had 6,1717 residents test positive for the coronavirus and 512 have died. A total of 4,787 people have been confirmed to have recovered from the virus.

The median age of those who have been infected in the county is 54, while the median age of death has been 82.

More information about coronavirus in Bucks County is available on the county's web portal.