Gov. Wolf to move Allegheny, Westmoreland, other counties to green phase

Allegheny, Westmoreland and 14 other counties will move to the green phase of the state’s three-phase reopening plan June 5, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday.

“The goal here is to make sure that every Pennsylvanian is confident that they’re going to be safe,” Wolf said.

The counties are Allegheny and Westmore­land, along with Armstrong, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria, Clinton, Fayette, Fulton, Greene, Indiana, Lycoming, Mercer, Somerset and Washington.

Those 16 counties, home to about 3 million people in Western and Central Pennsylvania, will join 18 other mostly rural counties that have already transitioned to the green phase. The green phase suspends all previous stay-at-home orders and further lifts many pandemic restrictions for businesses.

The weeklong buffer between announcing counties that will move to the green phase and transitioning to reopening allows health officials to observe whether there was a spike in coronavirus cases since those areas entered the yellow phase in recent weeks, a Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesperson said in a statement.

Physical distancing, an increase in covid-19 testing capacity and expanded contact tracing are some of the factors that have allowed Pennsylvania to start reopening, Wolf said.

“It is important that we continue to act with caution,” Wolf said, referencing the rapid spread of the coronavirus in March.

Residents of green-phase counties are encouraged to continue wearing masks in public spaces and to follow physical distancing measures, like staying six feet apart, he said.

Wolf first issued a stay-at-home order for Allegheny County on March 23. Westmoreland County was placed under a stay-at-home order March 27. Those orders were lifted when parts Southwestern Pennsylvania, including Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties, transitioned to the yellow phase May 15, but many other restrictions on retail, dining and other businesses stayed in place.

Allegheny County has reported 1,870 cases of the coronavirus and 151 deaths since the first case was reported there March 14. Westmoreland County has reported 444 cases and 38 deaths.

“We’ve been able to keep our numbers very low over these last couple weeks while we’ve been in the yellow phase, and the fact that the governor recognized that allows us to open up some of the businesses that have really been suffering and really been hurting over these last few months, particularly our restaurants, our hair salons, our nail salons and our gyms,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “And to allow them to open up next week will be really helpful, and I know there’s a lot of hope for the folks that work in those businesses.”

Time for a hair cut

Hair salons and barber shops must operate by appointment only in the green phase.

“I’m so ready to open. I miss my clients. We are ready,” Danielle Rotto, owner of Danielle’s Hair Salon on Freeport Road in Harrison said. “It’s been so long. I have known nothing but this. It’s my whole life. I can’t wait to see my clients.”

She plans to open June 6. One customer will be allowed in the salon at a time and other clients will be asked to wait in their cars, Rotto said.

She’ll be doing temperature checks, requiring masks and asking customers to sign a release, something that isn’t required by the state.

Rotto plans to work seven days a week once re-opened.

“I have a huge clientele. They’ve been calling me all day. It’s so exciting,” she said.

Still no concerts or festivals

Any event of more than 250 people — including concerts, festivals, fairs, conferences, sporting events, movie showings or theater performances — is prohibited.

Visitation to prisons and hospitals may resume.

Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and other places of worship are excluded from the order, and leaders of those institutions are encouraged to practice physical distancing, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

Restrictions at restaurants and bars

Indoor and outdoor dining at restaurants and bars located in green-phase counties is allowed, as long as physical distance guidelines laid out in the governor’s order are followed.

Some restrictions will remain in place: Indoor dining is restricted to 50% occupancy, and bar seating can only be used if there’s six feet between patrons or if there are physical barriers between customers.

Standing in bar areas is not allowed, and a maximum of four customers with a “common relationship” may sit together at a bar.

There will be some flexibility for diners who need to remove a mask to eat, but Fitzgerald is also encouraging residents to continue wearing masks.

“The mask situation has not changed,” Fitzgerald said. “People still have to wear their masks — businesses for their own benefit, for employees, for customers. I can’t imagine any businesses would want to get a reputation of being unsafe, an unsafe place to go shop or to go dine because people aren’t wearing masks.”

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said the city would consider policy changes that would allow restaurants to offer outdoor dining. The city is considering closing streets so eateries can set up tables outside.

Restaurants should begin applying now for permission to do that, he said.

“We want them to apply now so that on June 5 you can actually have dinner outside,” Peduto said.

Homestead-based restaurant chain Eat’n Park, which has locations throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, is among those that are ready to host customers for indoor dining June 5.

“Many of our guests have been quarantined,” Eat’n Park President and CEO Jeff Broadhurst said. “They’ve been sitting in their house ready to get out. They want to come back to a place that’s safe and comfortable, see faces they know and familiar faces. That’s Eat’n Park. We can’t wait to welcome them back.”

Some summer activities still on hold

The city will also consider lifting restrictions for other activities that have been suspended.

“That does not mean that they will be changed, but they will be evaluated for potential change,” Peduto said. “More than likely that will require the complete withdraw from any warning signals — red, yellow green — before we’ll be able to have a lot of the activities that we had before.”

Pittsburgh pools will not open this summer.

Allegheny County has not yet made a decision on whether to operate county-operated pools and spray parks, Fitzgerald said.

Counties still in the red phase — Philadelphia, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery and Northampton — are expected to move to yellow June 5, Wolf said.

The state has now had 70,735 total cases and 5,464 deaths. Deaths have been recorded in 55 of the state’s 67 counties, and every county has had a positive case.

Counties that have already lifted restrictions could return to an earlier phase of reopening — from red to yellow, or green back to yellow — if coronavirus cases spike again.