Nov 12, 2020 2 min read

State Health Secretary Rachel Levine called Thursday for a “double down” of existing COVID-19 mitigations as Pennsylvania experienced yet another record-breaking number of new cases.

Levine said the Gov. Wolf administration was continuing to discuss how bad the spread of the virus needs to get before taking additional steps to deal with the disease.

“We’re analyzing things very closely,” Levine said after announcing 5,488 new cases of the novel coronavirus.

The number of new cases Thursday was 777 higher than the previous record set a day earlier, state records show.

The virus since March has killed 9,194 Pennsylvanians after 49 new deaths were announced, none of which involved residents of Washington, Fayette or Greene counties. Allegheny County announced three new virus deaths.

Levine said the case increases reflect what is happening in the United States.

“It’s more important now than ever to answer the call,” she said.

The call involves the state mandate to wear a face mask in public, cooperating with contact tracers and avoiding large and small crowds as the rapid spread of the virus is likely to increase.

Levine also stressed that there is no evidence of the virus cases becoming less severe, that the treatment methods have improved since March.

The new cases in Washington County surged to 98, taking its cumulative total to 2,791. Greene County added 17 to its total that climbed to 389. Fayette County added 16 cases to its total of 1,263.

Levine said the increase in cases was not due to more testing for the virus.