UPMC doctors say they’re seeing less severe COVID-19 cases since start of pandemic

PITTSBURGH — As much of western Pennsylvania prepares to enter the green phase Friday, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is offering promising news about the spread of COVID-19.

On Thursday, we learned there are 13 new deaths related to the coronavirus in Allegheny County alone, with 12 of those linked to long term care facilities.

“We do not want to wait passively for this virus to appear. Our philosophy is we need to hunt it down,” said UPMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Nace.

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That hunt for UPMC begins in long term care facilities, where the majority of coronavirus cases nationwide are spreading through the most vulnerable population.

Beginning Thursday, the healthcare giant will test all residents for coronavirus and all staff will be tested to see if they have the antibodies to fight the virus.

“We don’t really have good information to tell us what was happening prior to the recognition of this outbreak. Was this happening previously? The employee testing will help us in terms of that,” Nace said.

This comes as UPMC revealed its doctors are not only seeing a drop in cases, but less severe versions of it.

“We think that the total amount of virus looks like it has come down. Even people who test positive, they seem to have less of it,” said UPMC Emergency Medicine Chair Dr. Don Yealy.

That means a person who tests positive could have fewer symptoms and be less likely to infect other people.

UPMC began testing all of its patients for coronavirus in April.

Yealy says less than 1% of the 8,000 asymptomatic people tested were positive.

“The risk of catching COVID-19 from an asymptomatic person, that is someone who doesn’t even know that they have the infection, in our communities is very small today,” Yealy said.

Some more encouraging news released by UPMC is that they’ve now treated and released 500 people for coronavirus through its entire hospital system -- Good news they hope will continue as coronavirus makes its way through the population.

Allegheny Co. health officials expect increase in coronavirus cases in green phase Allegheny Co. health officials expect increase in coronavirus cases in green phase

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