Editorial: Wolf needs consistent message

It’s a system used for stoplights and preschool behavior charts: red, yellow, green.

Apply it to the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and you have a series of gates that keep Pennsylvanians behind closed doors.

Until May 8.

On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a list of 24 counties that will go from the full lockdown of red to a less restrictive yellow, based on the saturation of infections in the population. All 24 are in the northwest or north-central part of the state. None of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties will flip to green.

The slow step back, instead of a light switch flipping the lockdown from on to off, makes sense.

But yet again, a move that is rational is complicated by the state’s garbled messaging.

On April 22, Wolf first announced the color-coded statuses would be used to reopen the state as testing and caseloads warranted. There would have to be 50 or fewer new cases per 100,000 residents.

A day later, the state hedged that message. The numbers would be only part of the determination, Wolf and Secretary of Health Rachel Levine clarified after a number of people looked at the numbers released daily and did the math to find their counties should come in below that threshold.

“We’re going to have to make subjective decisions as objectively as possible,” the governor told reporters on a call.

Yes, that makes sense. So does reopening a county like Jefferson that has just four positive cases and no deaths — as opposed to Philadelphia, where 12,544 people have tested positive and 424 have died.

But Wolf’s message continues to flit from stern enforcement to sensitivity to a confusing hodgepodge of criteria in all aspects of its covid-19 response. The traffic signal on its lockdown opening is just the latest example.

There was the stutter-step of school shutdowns in March. The guidance on closing down businesses that suddenly turned into a mandate. The scattershot approach to what is and isn’t essential. The idea liquor stores are less important than beer distributors — until the state seemed to be losing too much money while too many people wanted a good stiff drink.

The governor seems to want credit for his tough, proactive stances against the danger of the contagious disease. Unfortunately, he also seems unable to stiffen his spine enough to hold that ground.

The result is much like that stoplight. It might be red or yellow or green, but if you don’t like the signal it’s flashing, just wait a minute and it will change.

The problem with that is we have to have confidence in the signals our government sends. At intersections, they keep us from crashing into other cars. During more complicated situations, like a pandemic, they make it possible to accept what is happening with the belief it will change when conditions warrant.