For now, Southwest Pa. must wait as Gov. Wolf eases coronavirus restrictions in 24 northern counties

Counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania are not among those that will see coronavirus-related restrictions eased next week, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday, and there is little indication as to when more counties can begin the reopening process.

Two dozen counties in the Northwest and North-Central parts of the state will move into the “yellow phase.” The yellow phase follows the red phase, which the entire state remains in right now. The yellow phase eases some restrictions and lifts Wolf’s stay-at-home order.

The governor said a number of factors went into his decision. They included the 50-new-cases-per-100,000-residents metric, hospital capacity, population density, elderly population and ability to perform contact tracing and testing.

“They were selected, in part, because we feel we’re ready when it comes to activities like contact tracing and testing,” he said of the northern regions.

The changes take effect May 8. Wolf said his office on Monday will release guidance for businesses that will be permitted to reopen.

Counties moving to the yellow phase are: Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Union, Venango and Warren.

“They must continue to abide by the underlying message of yellow: ‘Proceed with caution,’ ” Wolf said.

The only county in that grouping to be left off the list was Columbia, which still is struggling with a relatively high number of infections.

Wolf offered hope that the Southwest region might not have to wait terribly long.

“We’re already looking at other counties to move from the red to yellow category,” he said. “In particular, we have our eyes on the counties in the Southwest and a few in the South-Central region that have lower new case rates but where we still have a few concerns.”

The criteria laid out by Wolf and Secretary of Health Rachel Levine were a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Most notably, they said regions should have a new case count that is lower than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over the course of 14 days.

Allegheny County officials said earlier this week that the county, with 1.3 million people, was on track to meet that standard. The state threshold would mean fewer than 650 new, confirmed cases over a 14-day period in Allegheny County. Officials there said their most recent data showed 328 new cases in a two-week period.

However, Wolf and Levine stressed that was not the only metric.

Levine said when it came to the Southwest region, population density — particularly in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County — was a factor.

“We felt — looking at all the different data and looking at all the metrics but then taking into consideration our ability to work with counties in terms of contact tracing and testing and the population density of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh — that (moving to the yellow phase) was not prudent at this time,” she said.

Contact tracing

A strong system of contact tracing — identifying all the close contacts of an ill individual during the time they were infectious and asking them to quarantine — will be key for areas to move toward the yellow phase.

Wolf said it takes time to build the infrastructure needed to identify everyone an ill individual came into contact with, notify them, ask them to quarantine for 14 days and monitor their progress.

“We have certain constraints over the ability to do the things we need to do to help these yellow areas stay yellow and maybe move into the green range as quickly as possible — things like contact tracing,” he said. “That takes people. It takes infrastructure. We’re somewhat limited by what we can do to help. To the extent that folks in the Southwest can help in this process, we can go faster rather than slower.”

Levine said with the lower case count and low population in the Northwest and North-Central regions, community health nurses are able to perform the tracing, notifying and monitoring.

The state also will rely on epidemiologists, their research associates and students in public health programs to carry out contact tracing in congregate living facilities like nursing homes.

These teams, officials said, will be sufficient to provide robust contact tracing in the initial regions identified to move into the yellow phase. The full details of the contact tracing plans can be found on the Department of Health website.

In other areas, the state will rely on the help of local health care systems, universities, specialists and volunteers to conduct tracing. In the Southwest, the state will work with the Allegheny County Health Department and universities and hospitals. Community health nurses and specialists from the state’s Bureau of Communicable Diseases will help support the efforts in Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Fayette, Indiana, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland counties.

Testing

The state’s plans also include increased access to testing.

The capacity for testing has grown exponentially since February, when the Department of Health’s lab in Exton was able to process just four tests per day. But officials said more expansion is a must.

The department, for now, remains focused on testing symptomatic individuals.

The goal is for 90% of the state’s population to have a testing site within 45 miles of where they live.

In terms of capacity, the department hopes to be able to test 2% of the population in each region every month. In the Southwest, that means 53,029 tests per month. In the North-Central region, that’s only 13,991 per month.

The state’s full testing plan can be found on the health department’s website.

Wolf reiterated a call for personal responsibility.

“Every human-to-human contact is a chance for the virus to spread,” he said. “More contacts mean a higher likelihood of an outbreak.”

He urged everyone, regardless of their county, to continue social distancing.

“Pennsylvanians living in a county that has been moved to the yellow category should strongly consider the impact of their actions,” Wolf said. “Likewise, Pennsylvanians living in a county that will continue to be under a stay-at-home order can make choices that will lead to fewer cases and a faster move to lifted restrictions.”