The news surrounding coronavirus is moving fast. With so much information, it’s easy to miss some of the developments, even major ones. To help keep you up-to-speed, The Morning Call staff takes a step back and look at 5 takeaways surrounding the most significant developments from the past week.
The end is in sight for the most severe coronavirus restrictions
Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday said all 67 Pennsylvania counties will be in the yellow phase of his color-coded system of lifting coronavirus restrictions by June 5.
Eight counties will go yellow next Friday: Monroe, Luzerne, Pike, Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Lebanon and Schuylkill. That will leave just Philadelphia and its suburbs, the Lehigh Valley and Lackawanna County left to make the transition the following week.
In the yellow phase, the most severe restrictions such as the stay-at-home orders and some business closures are lifted. Others businesses remain closed, including bars and restaurants for dine-in service, gyms, spas, salons and casinos.
To support his decision to lift some restrictions statewide, Wolf cited many statistics, including decreased hospitalization rates, rapidly falling new-case rates and declines in hospital patients on ventilators.
The first group of counties has also been cleared to go to the green phase, when most mitigation efforts are lifted but some basic restrictions remain in place such as limits on building capacity. Those 17 counties are: Bradford, Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Montour, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Venango and Warren.
State releases data on nursing home cases and deaths
The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Tuesday released data on the number of coronavirus cases and deaths at individual long-term care facilities in Pennsylvania. The information included the number of resident cases, number of employee cases and number of deaths at each facility.
The data was released weeks after advocates, including the state’s chief fiscal watchdog, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, urged greater transparency. Health Department officials had said they were weighing the public’s right to know against patient privacy and the dictates of state law.
A spokesman said DePasquale welcomes efforts by the Wolf administration to be more transparent. DePasquale believes families of long-term care residents and the public deserve a clearer picture of how this crisis is being managed by facilities, spokesman Gary Miller said.
The data showed Northampton County’s Gracedale nursing home with the second highest coronavirus case count statewide and the third highest number of deaths.
Confusion continues over Pa. Department of Health data
The release of the nursing home data did not go off without a hitch.
Shortly after it was released, facilities around the state began flagging inaccurate numbers, Spotlight PA reported. In some cases, the data showed a higher number of cases than residents at a facility.
A review by Spotlight PA found the department quietly made changes to the data after its initial release. On Thursday, Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine admitted “there were a small number of errors.”
“We’re correcting those,” she said.
Provider associations said publishing erroneous data has sown panic and anger among family members, distrust among nursing home staff, and frustration for providers. After its initial request for the data to be taken down was denied, the Pennsylvania Health Care Association is now threatening legal action, according to Spotlight PA.
With 205 resident cases, Gracedale is second only to Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver County, and its 44 coronavirus deaths places it behind Brighton and Parkhouse in Montgomery County, and tied with ManorCare in Sinking Springs.
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