The deaths of two residents along with 39 new confirmed cases were added to Butler County's totals Tuesday, while the statewide recovery rate remained steady.

Despite the deaths and continued addition of cases, the state's recovery rate has reached into the 80th percentile after it dropped as low as 57% in early December.

“I can certainly add that when Pennsylvania experienced its largest increase in cases, this certainly affected the estimated recovery rate,” said Maggi Barton, deputy press secretary for the Department of Health.

Barton said the recovery rate is determined using a calculation similar to one in use by several other states.

“If a case has not been reported as a death, and it is more than 30 days past the date of their first positive test (or onset of symptoms), then an individual is considered recovered,” Barton said.

With this in mind, Butler County as of Jan. 4 had 6,634 confirmed positive cases at the time. Based on the state's calculation, no one who has tested positive since then can be counted as recovered, but anyone who has died since then would still impact the recovery rate.

Based on the rough calculation, Butler County's recovery rate would be about 95%.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 8,353 county residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and 330 residents have died from the virus.

Similarly, 850,488 state residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and 21,812 have died from it.

According to the state's COVID-19 Dashboard, the deaths from COVID-19 are largely seen in the elderly population.

In Pennsylvania, those ages 80 to 89 account for 6,869 deaths; ages 90 to 99 for 5,142; ages 70 to 79 for 4,952; ages 60 to 69 for 2,819; ages 50 to 59 for 962; and age 100 and older for 320.