Wolf’s stay-at-home order expands

HARRISBURG » An order that restricts people’s movement is being expanded to nine additional Pennsylvania counties, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday as his administration confirmed more coronavirus cases and deaths.

Wolf said in a statement that the expanded stay-athome order, which starts Friday at 8 p.m. and will last until at least April 6, impacts a total of 19 counties. The new counties under the order are Berks, Butler, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Luzerne, Pike, Wayne, Westmoreland and York.

The stay-at-home order restricts movement to certain health or safety-related travel, or travel to a job at an employer designated by Wolf’s administration as “life-sustaining.”

Even before Friday’s order, half of Pennsylvania’s 12.8 million residents were under a stay-at-order in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and give the state’s hospitals time to increase its staffing, equipment and bed space.

Meanwhile, Wolf signed a package of coronavirus-related legislation that passed the Legislature earlier this week.

Cases

Wolf’s administration said it had confirmed more than 530 new cases through midnight Thursday, a 30% jump to more than 2,200, and six more deaths for a total of 22.

More counties, 50 of the state’s 67 counties, are seeing their first coronavirus cases, while at least 17 nursing homes have reported a case, according to the state Department of Health.

Hospital space

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said Friday that the city has reached an agreement with Temple University to use the Liacouras Center and possibly other

Temple facilities for overflow hospital space, including the pavilion and parking garage.

The Liacouras Center is a 10,000-seat multi-purpose center and will be able to handle at least 250 patients at first. City officials say they are moving quickly to get supplies and the physical aspects of the facility set up.

Wolf’s administration has stressed the need for hospitals to ramp up equipment, staffing and bed space to handle the expected surge in coronavirus patients in the coming weeks.

Among the facilities being considered are hotels and outpatient surgical facilities, Health Secretary Rachel Levine has said.

Wolf’s administration said Friday that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, along with federal and local government agencies, is assessing a number of sites across the state to become housing or medical facilities. No plans or agreements have been finalized, according to the administration.

As a whole, Pennsylvania has 37,000 hospital beds, although many are occupied. More than 1,300 of Pennsylvania’s confirmed coronavirus cases, or 60%, are in Philadelphia or its four suburban counties.

Jobless claims

Pennsylvanians filed another 48,000 unemployment compensation claims on Thursday, according to information from Wolf’s administration.

That means Pennsylvanians have filed nearly 700,000 claims over the past 12 days as Wolf ordered thousands of “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

In the seven days through last Saturday, Pennsylvanians filed about 379,000 claims, the most in the nation and smashing the state’s record for an entire week.