Saucon Source (https://sauconsource.com/tag/northampton-county/)
Most of the patients being treated for COVID in local hospitals aren’t there for other reasons, St. Luke’s University Health Network officials said in a news release Thursday; a statistic they said “contradicts the recent public narrative that most hospitalized COVID inpatients tested positive for the coronavirus incidentally only after being admitted to the hospital for other reasons.”
It’s certainly not the list most counties would want to top, but Lehigh and Northampton counties are currently ranked #1 and #2, respectively, among Pennsylvania’s 67 counties for the average number of new COVID cases they are reporting per 100,000 residents.
It certainly wasn’t the storm of the century, but the snow that moved through the Lehigh Valley Thursday night and early Friday morning was enough to provide areas such as Saucon Valley and Southern Lehigh with their first real taste of winter so far this year.
State Rep. Bob Freeman (D-136) said Wednesday that he has written to Chairman Mark Nordenberg of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission requesting that Hellertown be restored to the 136th district as part of the redistricting that is currently under way.
Lower Saucon Township Police issued a Crimewatch bulletin Wednesday in which they asked for help locating an Allentown man who is wanted on assault and other charges.
The post-holiday surge in COVID cases many public health experts feared appears to be in full swing in places like Lehigh County, which reported a new daily case record Tuesday.
Hellertown Borough Council members voted Monday to approve a resolution opposing a state House redistricting plan that would move the borough from the 136th legislative district to the 131st legislative district, and are also asking the public to weigh in on it.
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said Monday that a closed section of Rt. 611 in Northampton and upper Bucks counties could reopen “sometime in the next month or two,” while acknowledging that regardless of when the road reopens it won’t be “soon enough for the thousands of motorists that rely upon it.”
It will be harder for some Lehigh Valley residents who depend on the Lehigh & Northampton Transportation Authority’s (LANTA’s) bus service to get around the area Monday, after LANTA announced the cancellation of some Jan. 3 trips on its routes due to what it said is “a high level of absences among bus drivers due to COVID 19.”
It’s been a quiet season so far in terms of winter weather in the Lehigh Valley, but that could change Wednesday morning, when light freezing rain could make roads treacherous.