Five patients have died and more needed beds due to COVID-19 at Butler Memorial Hospital over the past two days.

According to Butler Health System's report Friday, Butler Memorial reported three deaths Wednesday and two Thursday.

The hospital also reported having 31 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, representing an increase of two patients from its report Wednesday.

According to the Department of Health's Friday report, the county had one more resident die from COVID-19. The data collected by the department can have lags of one to two days.

Also, the department tracks deaths and cases by county of residence, so if someone who calls a different county home dies at Butler Memorial, their death does not get added to Butler County's totals.

The county also added 33 new confirmed cases to its total, and has averaged about 29 new confirmed cases per day, falling well below January's average of about 61 new cases per day.

During the county's ongoing bout with COVID-19, Butler Health System continues to schedule vaccine appointments when it can.

According to hospital officials, if there are no more dates available on its online scheduling system, this means the doses they have in stock are all scheduled.

Scheduling for Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals opened again this week, but as of Friday, Butler Memorial had no available dates. Clarion had some available.

“Appointments are limited by doses received from the Pennsylvania Department of Health,” BHS spokeswoman Jana Panther said.

Vaccine scheduling, when open, is available to county residents age 65 and older through its online scheduling system.

At the state level, vaccines continue to be limited by supply shortages.

Lindsey Mauldin, senior health adviser for the Department of Health, said residents should remain patient and continue following mitigation efforts.

“Our Super Bowl parties might look a bit different because it is so important to stay safe,” she said.

On Thursday, Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine was submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization. “We would welcome additional vaccines, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, once they complete their trials and move through the FDA's emergency use authorization process,” said Maggi Barton, deputy press secretary for the state Department of Health.

According to data released by the department, the state has so far received 2.1 million doses of the vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

The state had administered 1.1 million doses of the vaccine, with 671,820 people receiving the first dose and 246,390 people receiving the second.