Pennsylvania set a record for new COVID-19 cases for the third consecutive day Thursday as Butler County continues to see higher rates of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The commonwealth reported 19,436 new, confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday, surpassing the previous record set Wednesday by roughly 2,000 cases, and pushing the number of COVID-19 cases to more than 2 million across the state. Over the past seven days, Pennsylvania has reported an average of 12,395 new, confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Although Butler County's struggle against the new omicron variant, which appears to be more contagious than both the initial and delta variants of COVID-19, hasn't led to case spikes as high as the state is experiencing, the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus remains higher than at any point since January.Butler's number of confirmed and probable cases grew by 268 on Thursday, according to the state Department of Health, the third-highest number since the pandemic began. The 313 new cases reported Dec. 2 remains the highest, followed by a day in December 2020 when the county reported 271 new cases.In the past seven days, the county has reported an average of 150 new cases each day, the second-highest figure since January. Seven-day averages may be more accurate than day-by-day figures, as new cases often are underreported on holidays and weekends. While 158 new cases were reported Dec. 24 and 114 new cases were reported Dec. 27, for instance, only 58 new cases were reported on Christmas Day and 71 reported Dec. 26.Butler Memorial Hospital reported 42 hospitalized COVID-19 patients as of Thursday morning, with eight in intensive care, while Clarion Hospital had five patients and none in the ICU.Throughout Butler County, an average of 43.8 patients with COVID-19 have been hospitalized during the past 14 days, with an average of 6.7 coronavirus patients on ventilators in the same time frame.The 14-day average is a decrease from the Dec. 11 high of 59.6 patients, which itself was the highest since January's record of 60, and is the first time Butler County's average has been under 45 patients since Nov. 28.

During a news conference Thursday afternoon, UPMC chief medical officer and chairman of the department of emergency medicine Dr. Donald Yealy advised those planning to celebrate and gather for the New Year holiday to keep safety protocols in mind.“New Year's is coming up, and people love New Year's parties. My advice to you is try to do it in as small a group as possible, your family or closest friends,” he said. “Ideally, everyone will be vaccinated, and you can be masked as much as possible and distanced. Very large gatherings really are an opportunity for spread, particularly with omicron.”Yealy recommended to keep previous advice in mind, and to get vaccinated, boosted and keep masking and distancing. He also reminded people to get their influenza vaccine, and said that when masking, single-layer or poorly fitting masks are less effective.“Unvaccinated people who get COVID-19 are seven to 10 times more likely to end up in an intensive-care unit than vaccinated people,” he said. “Across all the communities that UPMC serves, over 75% that are in an UPMC hospital for COVID have not been vaccinated. Most of the rest who may have been vaccinated are over age 65 or have other severe conditions that limited their availability to develop a full response and good immunity.”He emphasized that the vaccine remains a “wonderful protection.”“Vaccines help keep serious COVID-19 away,” Yealy said. “They're not there to protect you from any contact with COVID-19, but they allow you to be ready should you come in contact with COVID-19.”Yealy added that this situation, despite approaching the end of year two of the pandemic, is not permanent.“This is not anticipated to be our advice for the next upcoming years,” he said. “We do believe there will be a change in the pandemic. I know people say that 'Didn't I do this last year? Why are we doing it again this year?' — I think that we have the opportunity here to turn the corner and have the pandemic become more of an endemic, a milder infection that is in the background. But we are not there yet.”