40 To 60% Of Pittsburghers Could Get Coronavirus: Health Dept.

PITTSBURGH, PA - As many as 40 to 60 percent of Allegheny County residents will contract the coronavirus, county health department director Debra Bogen is warning. Although most people who become infected will be fine, the health department is cautioning southwestern Pennsylvania hospitals could be overwhelmed by coronavirus patients.

That's why health officials nationwide are recommending a continued period in which people self-isolate and nonessential businesses close.

The county health department provided stark predictions for the spread of the illness, forecasting in a release that it will not slow down "until it has infected most people in every community."

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Of those who contract the coronavirus, 80 percent will recover on their own. But based on information from other countries, about 20 percent of those who are infected will need to be hospitalized, with one quarter of those requiring intensive care and breathing support.

Applying those percentages to southwestern Pennsylvania's population of three million, the health department estimates that tens of thousands of people will need that intensive care and breathing support to survive.

The region's hospitals "can only handle a very small portion of this number at a time. This is a very grave situation."

The hospitals are only two to three weeks away from being overwhelmed, the health department warned.