the week in review
State officials plan for areas with declining COVID-19 infection rates to begin reopening their economies beginning May 8. Allegheny County is expected to qualify as one of those counties.
Staff writer David Templeton reported last week that, with that in mind, UPMC hospitals and medical facilities soon will resume preventative testing (colonoscopies and cancer screening, for example), elective surgeries and other medical services for patients who aren’t infected.
“We expect most services to resume within the next month,” said Dr. Donald Yealy, chair of the UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh Department of Emergency Medicine.
“Every UPMC facility is safe,” Dr. Yealy said, noting that one of the “biggest concerns is the risk of people avoiding going to the hospital out of fear.”
Dr. Rachel Sackrowitz, chief medical officer of the UPMC ICU Service Center, said all UPMC medical teams “are positioned and trained on how to care for patient safety and management to take care of the whole population. You should feel safe coming to UPMC.”
So you better keep sanitizer on hand
But our health care professionals aren’t looking just at the potential good news in the near future. They’re also monitoring the potential bad news in the more distant future.
Namely, the fall, which as staff writer Kyle Mullins wrote last week, brings with it the annual threat of the influenza virus that we’re more equipped to handle. Pittsburgh doctors are concerned about a one-two punch of seasonal respiratory diseases and a COVID-19 that might yet to be reined in.
Dr. Nitin Bhanot, director of the Infectious Disease Division at Allegheny Health Network, said one of the problems is that influenza and COVID-19 have common symptoms, often initially appearing as coughing, a fever and shortness of breath.
“It becomes difficult to differentiate between them,” said Dr. Joe Suyama, chief of emergency services at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, noting that “you can’t tell within the first few hours or days whether or not it’s COVID.”
Regardless of whether COVID-19 makes a resurgence, both doctors stressed the importance of getting vaccinated against the flu. While the vaccine is not perfect, it does reduce the risk of infection by 40% to 60% during years when it is wellmatched with the dominant strain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Virus wing created at local care facility
With so much awful news coming out of nursing homes here and across the country, it was good to read staff writer Nick Trombola’s story on Vincentian Home, a short- and long-term retirement community that has repurposed a wing of its McCandless facility to treat recovering COVID-19 patients.
The home, which has not yet reported a positive case of the virus, is calling the wing the COVID-19 Isolation Unit, and it will house residents — and patients referred to it by local hospitals — who test positive and provide them with continued care and recovery, said Nick Vizzoca, president and CEO of Vincentian Collaborative System.
The unit is made up of 14 private rooms. To enter, workers pass through a set of specialized doors that separate the unit from other facilities at the Vincentian Home campus.
“We would never knowingly admit a person with something like COVID-19 to a non-specialized unit,” said
Vincentian spokesman J. Jude Hazard. “But we believe that everyone indicated for post-acute care deserves post-acute care.”
It’s not an emergency room, but it is care.
Mr. Hazard said Vincentian Home admits about 1,000 people per year for both short- and long-term care, and the average length of stay at their facilities is about 14 days.
Helping tenants is the lease we can do
Nearly 100 Pittsburgharea agencies and organizations have signed an open letter to landlords urging them to consider taking advantage of bank offers in order to help themselves and their tenants get through the COVID-19 crisis.
“We want to communicate to landlords that there are steps they can take to protect themselves and their tenants’ homes until unemployment benefits kick in and they can get caught up,” said Kevin Quisenberry, a lawyer with the Community Justice Project in Downtown.
Staff writer Tim Grant reported that the state Supreme Court moratorium on evictions is set to end May 11, and unless it is extended, many tenants who have lost their jobs for reasons beyond their control may face eviction because they cannot pay rent.
On Friday, housing activists and others staged a carsonly protest and rally on Centre Avenue to demand that the government ensure everyone can access the resources necessary to avoid bankruptcy or homelessness. Nearly 50 cars blocked the Greenfield Bridge around midafternoon, demanding a rent/mortgage freeze for Allegheny County.
The Pennsylvania Apartment Association recently released recommendations for its statewide membership of apartment building owners and managers on how to help renters who fall on hard times due to the COVID-19 crisis. Recommendations include extending grace periods for late payments and waiving late fees, creating payment plans for residents, and halting evictions until July 15 unless tenants disturb the peace or violate the law.
We know all about bad ballpark figures
Controller Michael Lamb’s review of the city’s finances in 2019 found the numbers to be “very positive.”
Want to guess what the numbers for 2020 look like?
Staff writer Ashley Murray, covering Mr. Lamb’s yearly address on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, said the controller lamented that as this year continues, revenues — namely the loss of amusement and parking taxes from canceled events — will be “lost forever.”
A silver lining is that the city finished last year with a $20 million surplus, bringing its unassigned fund balance to $133 million — “a very strong number for a city with a budget of our size,” Mr. Lamb said.
That rainy day fund is nearly 20% of the city’s $720 million in operating and capital spending budgeted for 2020.
“We’re seeing a significant drop in revenue to the city,” Mr. Lamb said. “We’re not prepared to put a number on that right now. But I certainly understand and support the mayor’s decision on this in reaching out to the federal government to talk about some program for municipalities in this country.”
The mayor’s office estimates the city will see a $127 million decrease in revenue in 2020 — a figure that Mr. Lamb said he couldn’t confirm but is likely in “the ballpark.”
With what’s “likely to be a fiscal crisis moving forward,” the city will face cuts, according to the controller.
U.S. Steel Corp. forging ahead
U.S. Steel Corp. late Thursday announced a string of closings and layoffs to preserve cash as the struggling Pittsburgh-based steelmaker confronts lower prices and falling demand for its products amid the global pandemic.
Staff writer Patricia Sabatini reported that the company also announced a firstquarter loss of $391 million, or $2.30 per share — its third quarterly loss in a row.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Steel said it would temporarily idle the #1 blast furnace at its Edgar Thomson plant in the Mon Valley and the #6 blast furnace at Gary Works in Indiana, effective immediately.
As the fallout from COVID-19 began to emerge and as oil and gas markets sank, “We adjusted our footprint, fortified our balance sheet and aggressively cut costs,” CEO David B. Burritt said. “Challenging days are ahead, but I am confident in the men and women at U.S. Steel.”
PPG tries to paint a better picture
Still, not all the news from the corporate giants was bad. Staff writer Joyce
Gannon reported that PPG is closely watching the restart of China’s economy for lessons about what to expect as the rest of the world attempts to reopen.
PPG has 12 coatings factories in China that have come back on line recently, including one in Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus originated. PPG Chairman and Chief Executive Michael McGarry told Wall Street analysts Tuesday the company has seen “measured recovery and demand” which he described as “positive signs.”
“We’ve learned a lot from the restart in China,” he said during a conference call to discuss first-quarter results.
PPG, which is based Downtown, has 47,000 company employees worldwide and about 2,400 in the Pittsburgh region.
Summertime, and tuition is freezing
The board overseeing Pennsylvania’s 14 stateowned universities voted Wednesday to freeze tuition systemwide for 2020-21 and tentatively approved a 1% increase for the year after that.
Staff writer Bill Schackner noted that it marked the first time the State System of Higher Education has set two years of tuition by a single vote in its nearly four-decade history.
The board is looking to do some serious belt-tightening in the face of enrollment losses and other financial blows. They’re looking to pare the workforce and combine academic programs.
During the meeting, the board signed off on a wave of new retirement incentive programs for several unions and agreed to open the initiatives to nonunionrepresented workers, expediting an existing effort to pare the workforce and share academic and other programs.
State System officials confirmed they are preparing for multiple scenarios, from in-person classes to remote options. The system already expects another decline in students, 3.6%, but is planning for as much as a 10% enrollment reduction, said Chancellor Daniel Greenstein.
“A whole range of options are being considered, and choices will be driven first by the health and safety of the campus community, and then within that context, how can instruction be best provided,” spokesman David Pidgeon said. “[It] could be in-class, could be multimodal, could be remote instruction. A lot is on the table.”
Police are looking to collar the thieves
Our Post-Gazette colleague Sara Bauknecht is usually tasked with the coming and going of fashions, but last week she wrote about the coming and going of clothing, specifically worn items that people have been donating — only to have the donations pilfered by latenight scavengers.
“Typically, our stores would run, and we’d take donations from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.,” said Andrew Marano, vice president of donated goods and retail for Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania. “There are people who are aware of our hours. We have cameras, and we see people out there rifling through things.
“We’re monitoring that and working closely with local police departments to do whatever we can do.”
The Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Centers in Pittsburgh, which have temporarily halted clothing donations, have likewise experienced looting.
“We also have people who see the donations sitting somewhere and then they go through them, and it creates quite a mess,” said Martina O’Leary, administrator for business. “That’s why we’re asking people to hold on to them.”
Teddi Horvitz, president of the National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh section, said people should hold on to the clothing donations. Organizations are counting on them when they reopen, particularly those looking to stock resale stores.
“We think thrift sales are most likely to go up with the huge unemployment rates,” she said. “Please don’t throw out your stuff. Create a holding space for it in the garage or trunk of the car.”
Boogie Woogie Fever beats any coronavirus
On top of everything else, this quarantine forced the cancellation of the “Princess Glam Jam,” an informal daddy-daughter dance hosted by the Spencer Family YMCA in Bethel Park. The event was a sold-out affair expected to draw 450 people.
So, like so many other aspects of our lives, it was held online, with coordinator Kim Black pulling up songs on Spotify through a Google Hangout video chat. And it worked!
Staff writer Anya Sostek wrote that the response from the kids and their parents was so great that they’ve launched weekly “Virtual Family Dance Parties” to be held each Friday from 7 to 8 p.m. this month. Professional DJ Joshua Walker, of Moon, who has seen all of his weddings and other booked events canceled, is supplying the magic of the music.
Mike Markiw, of Bethel Park, turned his basement office into a disco as the family wore glow-in-the-dark vests and danced under a blacklight.
“They are at an age where they have a lot of energy,” he said of his daughters, Melanie, 9, and Natalie, 5. “It gives them something to look forward to on a Friday night.”
Families are inviting other friends and even grandparents to participate remotely. The link to the dance parties is posted on the YMCA’s Facebook page and on Mr. Walker’s website, www.discjockeyjosh.com.