Six county more residents have reportedly died because of COVID-19, and 68 new confirmed cases were added Monday.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 7,248 county residents have tested positive for COVID-19, and 252 residents have died from the virus, according to data released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Monday's statewide report showed 5,338 new confirmed cases and 83 new deaths.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 726,154 residents statewide have tested positive for COVID-19 and 17,853 have died from the virus.

According to the statewide report, hospitals in the state are treating 5,201 hospitalized patients, with 1,062 of those being treated in the intensive-care unit.

“The trend in the 14-day moving average of the number of hospitalized patients per day has increased by 5,100 since the end of September, and that number has recently decreased a bit,” said state Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine at a news conference Monday.

Butler Health System reported steady levels of inpatients Monday at both hospitals.

Butler Memorial Hospital reported treating 42 inpatients, of whom 40 had confirmed cases of COVID-19, a decrease of two in overall inpatient levels from Friday's report. Butler Memorial also reported treating 10 in its intensive care unit, an increase of three patients from Friday's report.

Butler Memorial reported the death of one patient from COVID-19 to the Department of Health Jan. 9.

Along with the “slight decrease” in statewide hospitalizations, the COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard showed a decrease in percent positivity.

The statewide percent positivity dropped from 15% the week of Dec. 25 to 31 to 14.4% from Jan. 1 to last Thursday.

Butler County's percent positivity also reduced from 16.4% to 14.4% during that same time frame.

The county saw a decrease in all of the metrics tracked by the dashboard, except for the daily average of COVID-19 patients on ventilators, which rose from 3.1 to 5.1 per day.

According to the Department of Health's Hospital Preparedness chart, there are 27 ventilators located in the county and 10 are in use. However, the in-use figure includes uses for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.

With many metrics showing slight decreases and more favorable outcomes, the statewide recovery rate has also increased in recent weeks. Last month, the recovery rate reached percentages in the 60s, but on Monday the recovery rate stood at 74%.

Levine said it is likely that number will continue to rise to some degree. “This number has started to increase again recently,” she said.