Oct 22, 2020 2 min read

Pennsylvania reported one of the highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases Thursday since the pandemic began in March, partly due to a delay in reporting from a laboratory.

The state Health Department announced 2,063 new cases of the virus, taking the statewide total to 188,360.

“However, there was a faulty data file sent to the system by a laboratory earlier this week, which prevented some of the lab results from being properly reported,” the department stated in a news release.

Some of the new cases should have been reported Wednesday, the state said.

There was one new COVID-19 death in both Allegheny and Fayette counties, taking their totals to 417 and 13, respectively. There were no new deaths from the disease reported in Washington or Greene counties.

The virus continued to spike in Westmoreland County, where 117 new cases were reported Thursday.

Washington County’s case-count jumped by 36 to 1,754. Greene County added two new cases to its total that inched to 219. A dozen new cases were reported in Fayette County, taking its total to 957.

“We knew there was a resurgence coming,” Gov. Tom Wolf said during a Thursday news conference in Pittsburgh.

He said health officials know more about the virus than they did when the mysterious disease arrived in the state and led early on to about 6,000 patients requiring ventilators. As of Thursday, 98 patients were on ventilators, Wolf said.

“We’re in a different place, Wolf said. “The number of people in ICU is down.”