Beaver County among 12 more moving to Pennsylvania's yellow phase

Beaver County is among the dozen counties that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday will move into the yellow phase of the tiered reopening process next week, a move that will put all of Western Pennsylvania under loosened restrictions.

The announcement came a week after Beaver County was left off the list of counties that moved to the yellow phase Friday, a move that pushed county officials to declare they were deeming themselves yellow on their own.

“Looking at all of our metrics, our data, our models … Beaver County had significantly decreasing case counts over the last two weeks,” Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said Friday.

The yellow phase loosens some pandemic-related restrictions put in place months ago to staunch the spread of covid-19. Retailers and offices are permitted to open under some restrictions, and gatherings of up to 25 are permitted.

Wolf again warned that “yellow means caution.”

“This virus has not been eradicated from these counties,” he said.

Gyms, salons, casinos, theaters and similar venues will remain closed, and restaurants still cannot resume dine-in services.

The counties that join Beaver in moving to yellow on May 22 are: Adams, Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Wayne and York.

Two dozen counties transitioned into yellow on May 8, and 13 counties, including much of Southwestern Pennsylvania, made that move Friday. Eighteen counties — including most of the eastern edge of the state — remain in the red phase, which means all restrictions are in place.

Beaver County commissioners had likened being left out of the May 8 announcement to “economic punishment,” but Wolf said politics played no role in his decision.

“These are not political decisions,” he said. “We’re all trying to keep people safe.”

The virus has killed more than 4,300 people across the state, and more than 60,000 residents have contracted the virus since the first positive cases were diagnosed March 6.

No county has moved into the green phase of the reopening plan, which lifts all restrictions. Neither Wolf nor Levine have detailed what the criteria will be for moving into the green phase, noting that the first counties have only been in the yellow phase for a week.

Wolf reiterated that there are many metrics that go into the reopening decisions, and he depends upon the advice of medical experts and epidemiologists.

“We look out and see the clear skies and first lasting warm days of spring. That’s what we see,” he said. “Epidemiologists see a single person in a busy store exhale a cloud of virus particles and seven other customers standing nearby inhale those particles.”

“If we see a continued decline in case counts, we can lift more restrictions and bring our lives closer to normal,” he added. “So it’s in every single Pennsylvanian’s best interest to continue to take social distancing seriously.”

He said he believes the economic toll would have been even worse without the mitigation efforts, as more people would have suffered and the health care system would have crumbled under too many patients.

“Had we allowed what happened in Italy or Spain to happen here, that would have been worse for the economy,” he said.

Wolf spoke directly to those who continue to take issue with the gradual reopening process.

“Instead of feeling frustrated about living in a red-phase county or a yellow-phase county, consider this,” he said. “We have saved lives with what we’ve done.”