Coronavirus Philadelphia: Health Officials Believe 'We've Hit A Plateau' As COVID-19 Cases Tops 8,000
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia health officials believe "we've hit a plateau" as the number of COVID-19 cases has now topped 8,000. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley reported 604 new cases on Thursday, bringing the citywide total to 8,045 cases.
Farley says 42 more people have died, raising the city's death toll to 264. That is the highest daily death count the city has seen, but with labs reports coming back in batches, Farley says it makes it difficult in following the trends.
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The health commissioner says even though the city may have hit a plateau, it doesn't mean the number of cases will start to decrease.
"It looks like we've hit a plateau where we've been pretty level over about a week in the number of new cases a day, if you ignore the past few days where we think the data is incomplete," Farley stated. "We may have hit a plateau. I can't say that we will see decreases yet."
The number of people hospitalized in the Philadelphia region continues to increase as more than 1,500 patients are being treated.
"The hospital data says that definitely we're not necessarily past the worst of this. There's still far to go in this epidemic," Farley said. "I know all of us want to have it be done, we want to be past all this, we're not there yet. I'm hopeful that we're going to be turning a corner soon."
The Liacouras Center at Temple University is now open to take overflow patients, if need be.
"This site is now ready to accept patients, though we obviously hope to never have to use it," said Mayor Jim Kenney. "We are grateful to all of our partners, including our host Temple University, for the incredibly smooth transition of this site from an empty arena to a fully functioning hospital."
Statewide, there are now nearly 28,000 cases as the death toll approaches 800.
