Pandemic restrictions to ease in 12 counties

HARRISBURG, PA. » Another 2.6 million people across western Pennsylvania began to emerge from pandemic restrictions Friday as Gov. Tom Wolf announced that 12 more counties soon will join them in a partial easing.

Wolf said that Adams, Beaver, Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Wayne and York will be the next batch of counties moving to the “yellow” phase of his reopening plan, effective May 22. They are primarily in the southcentral and northeast regions of the state.

They’ll join residents of 13 lightly impacted counties — including the cities of Pittsburgh, Johnstown and Altoona — where Wolf lifted his stay-at-home orders on Friday and gave permission for retailers and other types of businesses to reopen. Twenty-four counties across a vast swath of primarily rural northern Pennsylvania were the first to see a partial reopening last week.

All told, by the end of next week, more than 40% of Pennsylvania’s population of 12.8 million will have seen an easing of pandemic restrictions that were intended to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with very ill COVID-19 patients.

The state’s efforts to contain a virus outbreak that has sickened over 60,000 and killed more than 4,300 statewide have cratered the Pennsylvania economy, and Wolf is under pressure from Republican and some Democratic county officeholders to reopen more quickly.

The GOP-controlled Lebanon County Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 Friday to lift restrictions on their own — without Wolf’s blessing. Wolf has threatened to block coronavirus funding to counties that defy him, but didn’t say Friday whether he would follow through.

“The unfortunate thing about a decision like that is why anybody would think they could make it, going to yellow in the face of a virus that’s sitting there saying, ‘I don’t think you’re really ready.’ It could put the lives of folks in that county at risk,” he said at a video news conference.

Critics of Wolf’s shutdown orders, primarily Republicans, contend that they are inflicting undue suffering and are no longer warranted, given that infection rates are declining in many areas of the state. Some GOP-controlled counties, including Huntingdon and Dauphin, have not officially declared an end to some of Wolf’s pandemic restrictions — as Lebanon did Friday — but say they won’t enforce his business shutdown.

People are “voting with their feet and going to work,” said Josh Parsons, chairman of the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners.

Small business owners in particular have chafed against Wolf’s closure of

“non-life-sustaining” businesses, saying it threatens to drive them out of business. A handful of gyms, barbers, hair salons and restaurants statewide have opened in defiance of the governor. Wolf has said they are jeopardizing their business licenses and other governmental approvals to operate.

About 2 million Pennsylvania residents have lost their jobs since midMarch, and food and milk giveaways draw long lines. Some people have gone two months without a paycheck because of the state’s problem-plagued online unemployment benefits portal.