A backlog of data at the state level meant Allegheny County saw a sharp increase in the number of COVID-19 deaths reported Thursday, the county Health Department said.
In the most recent 24-hour period, the county reported 135 new deaths, a statistic it attributed to a backlog in the state’s Electronic Death Reporting System and significantly higher than the eight deaths reported Wednesday.
The latest deaths occurred between Dec. 16 and Jan. 24. Among them was a person in his or her 40s, three in their 50s, 11 in their 60s, 29 in their 70s, 46 in their 80s, 40 in their 90s, and five in their 100s.
According to the county, 70 of the deaths were associated with long-term care facilities.
With the latest data, the county has reported 1,412 deaths since the pandemic began in March.
The county also reported 358 new cases, increasing its total to 68,445, and 4,199 hospitalizations as a result of the virus.
In Pennsylvania, 198 new deaths and 6,036 new cases were reported by the state Health Department. With the increases, the state has recorded 824,405 cases and 21,303 deaths. More than half the deaths — 11,170 — are associated with nursing or personal care homes.
The Health Department said 3,768 people were hospitalized throughout the state, with 759 being treated in intensive care units.
So far, the state has administered 837,817 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 678,618 people — 519,419 received a first dose, and 159,199 of them have received a second dose.
Carnegie Mellon University on Thursday said daily surveys conducted by its Delphi Research Group indicate racial disparities in both access to and trust in the vaccines.
The surveys are conducted daily as part of Facebook’s Data for Good program, but the results for those who have been vaccinated is based on the response of 300,000 people from Jan. 9-15, the university said.
When asked whether they had received a vaccine, 9.3% of white people said yes, compared with 6.8% of Hispanics and 6.4% of Black people. American Indians/Alaska Natives (12.9%) and people of Asian descent (12.3%) had the highest rates of vaccination.
Trust in medicine and the vaccine also was an issue for Black respondents.
Just 58% of Black respondents said they trusted the vaccine, as opposed to 73% of Hispanics and 76% of whites. Asian Americans had the highest level of acceptance, at 88%, the university said.
The responses also noted that, in some states, Black people were more than twice as likely than white people to worry about the vaccine’s side effects.
The wide racial and ethnic disparities among those who received the vaccine are due to several factors, including affordable access to health care and distrust in medicine due to “decades of discrimination,” the university said in a release.
“These disparities highlight long-standing gaps in Americans’ access to and trust in medicine, and show that much work remains to be done to ensure everyone has access to health care they trust,” said Alex Reinhart, an assistant teaching professor in CMU’s Department of Statistics and Data Science and one of the researchers who helped to analyze the data.
According to CMU, the Delphi Research Group began daily surveys related to COVID-19 in April, with an initial focus on self-reported symptoms. The surveys were later expanded to include factors such as mask use and vaccine acceptance.
Delphi researchers use the data to forecast COVID-19 activity at state and county levels, information that then is reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings are updated daily and made available to the public on CMU's COVIDcast website, delphi.cmu.edu/covidcast/survey-results/.
First Published: January 28, 2021, 4:56 p.m.
Updated: January 28, 2021, 6:43 p.m.
