HARRISBURG, Pa. (EYT) — The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed that Venango County reported 177 new COVID-19 cases and four additional deaths since Friday, December 3.

The county’s total number of cases has reached 8,332 while the death toll increased to 177.

Neighboring Forest County reported 17 new COVID-19 cases since Friday, increasing the county’s total number to 1,780 and leaving the death toll at 29.

New Statewide Positive Cases Last Seven Days

12/3/21 through 12/6/21 — 25,935
12/2/21 — 10,127
12/1/21 — 9,143
11/30/21 — 7,606

[LOCAL REGION — Since Friday]

Today, the Pennsylvania Department of Health provided a weekly COVID-19 update as of Monday, Dec. 6.

“The Department of Health continues to adapt as the COVID-19 global pandemic approaches the two-year mark,” Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said. “We are continuing to provide daily updates on vaccinations, cases, hospitalizations and deaths online in a variety of interactive dashboards to help residents understand how this virus is affecting people around them.

“One of the things we have learned over the past 21 months is that following trends over a week or longer provides a clearer picture of what is happening. To help people better understand, our team will continue to update the various dashboards on a daily basis and we will shift from a daily news release of numbers, to a seven-day reporting of important trends.”

Pennsylvania continues to make critical strides in getting eligible residents vaccinated working closely with vaccine providers, grassroots organizations, and relevant stakeholders to ensure all Pennsylvanians have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the CDC, as of Monday, Dec. 6, 69.8% of Pennsylvanians age 18 and older are fully vaccinated. This percentage reflects all 67 counties in Pennsylvania.

If you or your loved ones are not yet vaccinated, now is the time to get fully vaccinated, get boosted, and get children ages 5 – 18 vaccinated. Visit vaccines.gov to find a vaccine provider near you to schedule your vaccine appointment.

This week, the Department of Health analyzed the following vaccine data within its 66-county vaccine jurisdiction; Philadelphia is a separate vaccine jurisdiction:

• 421,893 vaccine doses were administered in the past week, including:
• 207,909 booster doses administered in the past week.
• 75,825 pediatric doses administered in the past week.
• 47.2% increase in vaccines administered from previous week.

Here is a statewide summary of COVID-19 trends over the past 7 days Monday, Nov. 29 – Sunday, Dec. 5:

• The daily average number of cases was 7,338.
• The number of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, Dec. 6 was 9% higher than on Nov. 29. The percent of available adult and pediatric ICU beds in the state fell to 15.5% and 11%, respectively.
• There have been 654 deaths attributed to COVID-19 identified in the Pennsylvania death registry in the past 7 days, with 66% occurring in people 70 years and older.

The Department of Health continues to provide the public with extensive and frequently updated data on both the COVID-19 dashboard and the vaccine dashboard. Both dashboards provide an interactive experience for the user to review statewide and local-level data updated daily.

The department also provides a dashboard showing COVID-19 data for skilled nursing homes including case counts, deaths and vaccination status for residents and staff.

“We also encourage Pennsylvanians to join the more than one million people who have already downloaded the COVID Alert PA app as another resource to view COVID-19 data right in the palm of their hands,” Beam said. “The app also acts as an exposure notification tool by notifying you if you are a close contact of another app user that tested positive.”

For more information on the Department of Health’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit here.

To stay informed about the Wolf Administration’s vaccination efforts, the latest federal vaccine news, and answers to pressing vaccine questions, visit the Unite Against COVID Weekly Update.