Our practice has had to negotiate our way through the pandemic and mandated quarantine/shutdown. On March 24, we laid off 75% of our employees and saw only emergency patients. Last week our employees returned, and we are working at about 50% capacity. Our practice will survive, but smaller businesses and physician practices may not.
Nationally the unemployment rate is now 14.7% (on April 19 it was 3.6%), and could go as high as 20%. In Pennsylvania for the week ending May 2, the unemployment rate was 15.7%.
The other side of the equation can be summed up by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar’s comments of May 17: “We are seeing that in places that are opening, we’re not seeing this spike in cases.” Pennsylvania has had 61,600 cases with 3,043 deaths, 69% of which were in nursing homes. Counties in western Pennsylvania have been relatively spared from the virus: On May 16, Allegheny County reported 13 new cases, and Westmoreland reported two.
So, as the economy is getting worse by the day, the epidemic is dramatically slowing in western Pennsylvania. The economic costs of the shutdown to small businesses and families now appears to be much worse than problems caused by the virus.
It is time to responsibly open up Pennsylvania and let people go back to work. It would be good for business owners, good for employees and their families and good for the economy.
Joseph E. Imbriglia, M.D.
Cook Township
The writer is a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and a partner in Wexford-based Hand & UpperEx Center.