Chesco on target to transition to ‘green’ later this month

WEST CHESTER » If the trend continues, Chester County could transition to the green phase sometime this month.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s order says that a county has to be in the yellow phase for at least 14 days before moving to green. In Chester County, that day is June 19. After a county transitions to the yellow phase, health professionals are supposed to monitor increased coronavirus risks, such as significant outbreaks. If the risk is low for two straight weeks, the county can transition to the green phase.

But even in

green,

life won’t be anything close to normal.

“In the green phase, people still have to take precautions like wearing a mask to make sure that we don’t have new outbreaks,” Wolf said in a statement.

For more than 42 days, coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania have been on a downward trajectory.

“This is a huge accomplishment,” said Wolf. “And it’s all thanks to the tremendous sacrifices made by Pennsylvanians in the last few months.”

Moving from one phase to another will be based on a metric that includes whether a region has met a target goal of an average of less than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period. Nursing homes residents, private care residents and other congregant living facilities will be included in those counts.

In Chester County there have been 471 confirmed new cases in the past 14 days. Compared with the previous 14 days, there had been 532 new cases of COVID-19 in Chester County, a decrease of 11.5 percent.

Comparatively, in Delaware County, there have been 383 cases. And, there had been 615 new cases the previous 14 days, a decrease of 37.7 percent there.

The percentage of hospital ICU and medical surge beds that are currently occupied is less than 90 percent in the Chester County region.