'Worrisome Trend' As Montco Coronavirus Cases Continue To Rise

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — Citing a gradual increase which has continued unabated over a period of several weeks, local officials have changed their tone regarding the state of coronavirus in Montgomery County.

Commissioner Val Arkoosh cited the continuing weekly increases in cases and the rising percent positivty rate as "worrisome trends." Even more concerning, perhaps, is that cases are no longer being tracked to single mass gatherings or businesses. Rather, it seems, the virus is consistently spreading in individual interactions across the county.

"This is a little more concerning because there's not a single thing to point to here," Arkoosh said Wednesday. "We're not seeing a single large event...where we could go in and make an intervention and really try to mitigate. We did that with our long term care facilities."

The county increases had been gradual enough over the past month or so that authorities continued to cite them as almost statistically negligible, and maintained a positive tone in regards to the course of the virus countywide. That has now changed, with the percent positivity rate at 3.17 percent, half a point higher than it's 2.5 rate just one month ago on Aug. 10.

While five percent is considered the threshold of "concerning" by the World Health Organization, Arkoosh said she'd like to see Montgomery County under three percent.

There have been 348 new cases in the county over the past week, an increase over the 287 reported the week before. That number has increased for several weeks, officials said.

Three other key metrics monitored by the state also rose over the past week: incidence rate per 100,000, average number of patients on ventilators, and average number of daily hospitalizations per week.

In addition to not being able to trace the latest cases to large outbreaks, officials have also not seen significant cases on college and university campuses in Montgomery County. The county's more than 20 schools "very solid plans in place" and have been successful in containing the virus, with only 10 cases reported all told as of Wednesday.

Those cases do not include two major universities which straddle other counties: St. Joseph's University's cases are counted in Philadelphia, and Villanova University's cases are counted in Delaware County.

Arkoosh said that lowering the rate of the virus into the fall was especially crucial.

"As schools begin to bring students back, keeping the virus suppressed is more important than ever," Arkoosh said, noting that while most of the county's school districts started fully remote, they're all hopeful they'll be back to some sort of in-person instruction before January 2021.

Arkoosh urged residents to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Residents are urged to get tested, whether or not they have symptoms. "The more people that get tested, the more information we have," Arkoosh said.