State eyes reopening southwest counties in ‘not too distant future,’ but not on May 8
Twenty-four counties in the northwest and north central region of the state will partially reopen on May 8, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday.
But he said that state officials will look to open other areas with low case counts, including those in the southwestern part of the state, “in the not too distant future.”
“We have our eyes on the counties in the southwest and a few in the south central region that have lower case rates, but where we still have a few concerns,” Wolf said. “We’re going to be reopening facilities in these counties as quickly as we can, but we want to maintain public safety.”
While Fayette and Greene counties have lower case counts than surrounding counties – 81 and 26 cases respectively as of Friday – state officials took other criteria into consideration too, Wolf said.
Testing availability and contact tracing capabilities were among those other factors, officials said.
To conduct contract tracing, state Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said, community health nurses will talk to the patients to determine who they may have come into contact with while they were infectious. Nurses and other public health staff will notify those who were in contact with a COVID-19 patient, Levine said, noting the patient’s identity will not be revealed.
She also said increased testing capacity is “critical” for counties moving into the yellow phase.
“To accomplish this, we plan to make testing widely available by partnering with existing community resources, such as retail pharmacies and … federally qualified health centers,” Levine said.
Wolf, last week, instituted red, yellow and green designations for areas of the state. Currently, all are in red. The 24 northern counties announced Friday will be the first to move to the yellow phase.
Residents in yellow-zone counties will still have to wear masks, and must limit gatherings to no more than 25 people, but some shuttered businesses will be allowed to reopen.
Wolf said employees returning to work should feel safe doing so, and employers should want to ensure that they do.
“If we don’t do the right thing, this virus is going to spread. We can’t afford to do that, no business can afford to do that, so I would think that businesses have every incentive to be very responsible to encourage telecommuting when that’s possible, and when it’s not to make sure that employees who do come to work and have to be there physically are safe as long as they’re there,” he said.
Restaurants and bars will continue with restrictions as counties transition to yellow, offering delivery or take out services only. Levine said in addition to casinos and movie theaters, hair and nail salons will remain closed in yellow areas.
Levine said the hands-on nature of those businesses necessitates the continued closure.
“If someone was asymptomatic, and they were the person working in the hair salon, they would see … perhaps one person an hour, eight (clients) a day and be working five six days a week. They could expose a whole bunch of (clients) to COVID-19, and then those patients expose other patients and that’s how we get clusters and outbreaks,” Levine said.
In the yellow phase, Levine said, organized sports will also remain disallowed.
Drive-ins, however, could open – as long as social distancing practices continue to occur, she said.
Wolf said there is no set timeline for when additional areas will open up, and said residents should not have the expectation that all areas of the state will be moved to yellow or green in time for the June 2 primary election.
He asked those in the 24 counties that will partially reopen May 8 to act cautiously, and urged those who continue to be under stay-at-home orders to “make choices that will lead to fewer cases and a faster move to lifted restrictions.”
“Your actions will guide our future,” Wolf said.