Harrisburg, PA - Today, the Pennsylvania Department of Health provided a weekly COVID-19 update as of Monday, Dec. 20.
“This week we are continuing the ongoing data integrity partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to update the CDC dashboards,” Acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter said. “Later this week, the CDC dashboards will be updated to more accurately reflect data showing approximately 675,000 more Pennsylvanians have already received their third vaccine dose and approximately 300,000 more are already fully vaccinated.
“This is great news for Pennsylvania as hospital and health systems across the state continue to report the overwhelming majority of their COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. We need all eligible residents to get vaccinated and get boosted to stop the spread of variants that are pushing health care workers to their limit.”
Data quality assurance is a routine function of disease surveillance efforts and this thorough review of Pennsylvania’s vaccine data will ultimately lead to improved COVID-19 vaccination data quality.
“The vaccine administration and reporting process is complex and requires strong cooperation and partnership with all parties at the local, state and federal levels,” Klinepeter said. “The DOH maintains its commitment to providing the public with accurate data on our vaccine dashboard, and like other states, works with the CDC to improve the integrity of data shown at the national level.”
Other data changes being accepted this week by the CDC will reflect approximately 1,080,000 fewer Pennsylvanians with at least one dose and approximately 120,000 fewer vaccine administrations in the past 12 months. Exact changes will not be available until the updated CDC data tracker is posted this evening, which incorporates all CDC data updates from the past 24 hours.
The department will continue providing the public with accurate data updated daily on its vaccine dashboard to represent all vaccinations administered within the 66-county vaccine jurisdiction excluding Philadelphia County.
This week marks the second time in a month that the CDC accepted updated data from the department and incorporated it in the national data.
Weekly Update
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. 20, 70.9% 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:
- 406,243 vaccine doses were administered in the past week, including:
- 213,101 booster doses administered in the past week.
- 50,778 pediatric doses administered in the past week.
- 2.8% decrease in vaccines administered from previous week.
Here is a statewide summary of COVID-19 trends over the past 7 days Monday, Dec. 13 – Sunday, Dec. 19:
- The daily average number of cases was 7,252.
- The number of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, Dec. 20 was 0.3 percent lower than on Dec. 13. The percent of available adult and pediatric ICU beds in the state rose to 14.4% and fell to 8%, respectively.
- There have been 800 deaths attributed to COVID-19 identified in the Pennsylvania death registry in the past 7 days, with 59% 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.
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.
MEDIA CONTACT: Mark O'Neill - RA-DHpressoffice@pa.gov
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