Hospitalization levels for COVID-19 remain high at both Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals into the new year.

According to a report on Monday, 14 inpatients at Butler Memorial have died since Butler Health System's last report on Dec. 30.

On Monday, Butler Memorial was treating 59 inpatients, six fewer than last week's report; however, its intensive care unit use rose from seven to 11 beds.

Clarion Hospital also reported increases in both hospitalizations and intensive care unit use. On Monday, Clarion reported 18 inpatients, an increase of nine from last week's report. Clarion also reported one death since Dec. 30 and an increase of three beds used in the ICU, which stands at five.

The county and state's COVID-19 data appeared to be in flux through the weekend. However, state Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said the sudden drop in case counts could be attributed to system maintenance on the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) database.

“The case counts reported Sunday and today are abnormally low as a result, and we believe they may be somewhat higher than normal tomorrow,” said Levine in a news conference on Monday.

Levine said decreases in death counts weren't affected by the database maintenance because they use two separate reporting systems.

“However, we do anticipate a lag in reporting over the holiday, and that this number may be relatively low now and increase during the week,” Levine said.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health's reports for Sunday and Monday, the county added zero cases on Sunday and 124 on Monday. The county also added zero deaths on Sunday and two on Monday.

The temporary decreases also showed in statewide data, which saw its lowest new additions in many weeks.

On Sunday, 4,579 new confirmed cases were added, and 3,226 new cases were added Monday.

Levine also reviewed the latest data from the COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard.

The state reported multiple decreases and plateaus in the data. The statewide new confirmed cases decreased from 48,883 from Dec. 18 to Dec. 24 to 40,407 from Dec. 25 to Dec. 31. The incidence rate also decreased from 381.7 to 315.5 between these time frames.

Butler County's new confirmed case totals decreased from 693 to 596 additions during those time frames, and its incidence rate decreased from 368.8 to 317.2.

Also, the statewide polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing positivity rate at 15% remained steady from the week before. Levine said the rate has decreased slightly since mid-December.

This was one area Butler County broke the trend by having a higher PCR testing positivity rate. The county's rate rose from 14.9% to 16.5%.

Levine and Gov. Tom Wolf had used the recent downward trends in the data to reinforce their decision to impose further shutdowns over the past few weeks.

The closures ended Monday, but Levine called for a continued effort from Pennsylvania residents as vaccines continue to become more widely available.

“We know it is hard to ask people to be patient as we take on this unprecedented task, but patience is what we need,” she said. “Please continue to wear a mask, wash your hands and social distance to avoid becoming infected with COVID-19 and stop the spread.”