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The news surrounding coronavirus is moving fast. With so much information, it’s easy to miss some of the developments, even major ones.
To help keep you up-to-speed, we take a step back and look at 5 takeaways surrounding the most significant developments from the past week.
Pennsylvania’s reopening trickles along, with next batch of counties set to begin
Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday said 12 more counties, including a scattering in Pennsylvania’s northeast corner, will soon join 37 others in having some coronavirus restrictions lifted.
Wolf said Adams, Beaver, Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Wayne and York will move to the “yellow” phase of his color-coded system of lifting virus restrictions, effective May 22.
He acknowledged disappointment and frustration may be building in the other counties, which remain under stay-at-home orders in the “red” phase.
Four or five of the 12 counties that Wolf added to the yellow list could be described as being in the northeastern corner of the state: Carbon, Wayne, Wyoming, Susquehanna and, arguably, Columbia.
Wolf and Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine have said there are many criteria that are being used to decide when to move counties from red to yellow. One is having a new-case rate of fewer than 50 per 100,000 population over a 14-day period.
Trump, Toomey add their voices to those calling for speedier reopening
During his first presidential visit to the Lehigh Valley, a crucial area in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump on Thursday toured a medical supply distribution center that ships masks and other protective equipment across the country.
Before an audience of cheering workers at Owens & Minor Inc. in Upper Macungie Township, he pressed Pennsylvania to loosen coronavirus restrictions: “We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit. You have areas of Pennsylvania that are barely affected, and they want to keep them closed. You can’t do that,” he said.
Trump’s visit was part of his broader push to reopen the country and highlight his administration’s successes after initial stumbles in its response to the public health crisis.
“Allentown, your ancestors in this region are the patriots who mined the coal, loaded the rail cars, and poured the steel that built our biggest cities and raised our tallest towers,” Trump said, adding: “Pennsylvania workers, once again, you’re going to lead the way. With your help, we’re going to vanquish the virus.”
On Friday, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey echoed Trump’s comments on Pennsylvania’s reopening, saying it is “still going much more slowly than it needs to go.”
“We really should be moving ahead most everywhere in the state,” Toomey told The Morning Call on Friday morning, adding that he’d want to review data from Philadelphia and Delaware County before including areas that tallied some of the highest case counts. “But even there, there’s no question in my mind that many businesses can and should be able to be open.”
Toomey criticized the data-based criteria that Wolf has outlined for reopening — a new-case rate of fewer than 50 per 100,000 population over a 14-day period — as too high, and said there should be alternative thresholds for counties that have seen few cases.
Wolf threatens to pull federal aid from counties that go rogue on reopening
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that politicians who move to open counties during the pandemic in defiance of a schedule set by his administration are “acting in a most cowardly way” and risk losing federal coronavirus aid.
Wolf said counties that do not comply with the administration’s virus orders could lose some discretionary federal funding, and businesses risk licenses, certificates of occupancy and other financial ripple effects.
Wolf equated the fight against the coronavirus with a war.
“To those politicians who decide to cave in to this coronavirus, they need to understand the consequences of their cowardly act,” Wolf said during an online briefing. “The funding we have put aside to help with fighting this crisis will go to the folks who are doing their part, and that includes our CARES act funding, which will be used to support counties that are following the orders to prevent the spread and the medical communities that are treating patients.”
A number of Republican-led county governments said they were going to move toward reopening their counties regardless of the administration’s timetable, though several have since backed off.
In a news release issued soon after he made his comments, the Wolf administration said the following about counties “that do not abide by the law to remain closed”:
Counties will not be eligible for federal stimulus discretionary funds the state receives and intends to provide to counties with populations of fewer than 500,000.
Businesses in counties that do not abide by the law will no longer be eligible for business liability insurance and the protections it provides.
Restaurants that reopen for dine-in service in counties that have not been authorized to reopen will be at risk of losing their liquor license.
County residents receiving unemployment compensation will be able to continue to receive benefits even if their employer reopens. Employees may choose not to return out of concern for personal safety and the safety of co-workers.
Lehigh Valley infectious disease experts favor some reopening: ‘We should be in the yellow, headed toward green’
Infectious disease experts at top Lehigh Valley medical systems say much has been learned about COVID-19, and there is no reason some businesses and activities in the region cannot resume immediately with appropriate precautions.
“We should be in the yellow, headed toward green,” Dr. Luther V. Rhodes III, Lehigh Valley Health Network chief of hospital epidemiology, said last week during a recorded appearance in which he sat before an LVHN backdrop.
Separately, in a recorded phone conference, Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, an infectious disease specialist at St. Luke’s University Health Network, explained why he thought many Lehigh Valley businesses, with appropriate safeguards, could reopen now.
If an uncrowded beauty shop or nail salon had an operator and patron wearing masks and “you are not sitting cheek by jowl next to someone else, and that there is an adequate distance and there is no crowding, then I don’t see any reason why that business couldn’t open up,” Jahre said.
Both forums in which the doctors spoke were public, with recordings available on state Sen. Lisa Boscola’s website.
The Rhodes appearance came in a “Community Update on Coronavirus” broadcast hosted by PBS Channel 39 and WLVR on May 6. Jahre spoke during a “telephone town hall” arranged by Boscola, a Northampton County Democrat, on the same day.
Boscola has cited the doctors’ opinions in asking Gov. Tom Wolf to start reopening the Lehigh Valley.
Pennsylvania nursing homes will now weekly coronavirus test residents and staff
Nursing homes and other group care facilities will be required to test all residents and staff for the coronavirus once a week, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine announced Tuesday.
“This effort will give us a clearer picture of the extent of outbreaks in nursing homes and a head start at stopping them,” she said.
Coronavirus deaths at long-term care facilities account for two-thirds of fatalities among Pennsylvania residents, and Levine said state and local agencies are working together to address the threat.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has opened criminal investigations into several nursing homes, his office announced Tuesday.
The attorney general’s office did not say how many facilities it is investigating, or reveal their names or provide any other details about the specific allegations. In general, the office has jurisdiction in manners of criminal neglect.
According to the Health Department, 2,611 of the 3,806 coronavirus deaths reported to date ? or nearly 69% ? have been among residents of nursing homes or personal care homes. In Lehigh County, 91 deaths in long-term care facilities accounted for nearly three-quarters of the county’s 123 fatalities. Northampton County has 101 long-term care facility deaths, about 63% of its 161 deaths.
“By testing every resident and every staff member in every nursing home, we will be able to pinpoint exactly who has
COVID-19, who has been exposed but has no symptoms and [address] positive cases to prevent further spread,” Levine said.