Staying the course remains the best plan

“We’re not there yet.”

As calls to reopen the economy intensify around the nation, our local leaders here in Pennsylvania and particularly in Berks and Montgomery counties issue words of caution.

Their message to stay the course is especially important in the face of impatient protests.

“I so understand that everyone wants to get back to work, wants to get back to seeing their family and their friends. But we are not there yet,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh at a county briefing last week.

Arkoosh, a physician with both a medical degree and a master’s in public health, has been at the center of Montgomery County’s efforts to combat coronavirus and provide citizens with daily information regarding the outbreak.

“I go with the data. I’m trained to follow the data and the science,” Arkoosh said last Tuesday answering media questions regarding the timeframe for easing social distancing and reopening local businesses.

She echoed other leaders and health officials who’ve suggested the easing of restrictions must be accompanied by widespread testing, antibody testing to see who might be immune and increased contact tracing.

Arkoosh said viruses don’t care about county or state borders.

“We need to approach any decision to open up as a region,” Arkoosh said. “Unless we approach this as a big region, I think we’re likely to not be successful.”

County officials in Berks had similar words of caution and a stern warning to county residents on Saturday after the county recorded 211 new cases, the biggest one-day total, and eight more deaths pushing the total to 79.

Two days earlier, Berks County Commissioners launched a campaign asking county residents to “Do Your Part” and adhere to social distancing and other mitigation measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

“Things are certainly going in the wrong direction,” said commissioners Chairman Christian Y. Leinbach on Saturday.

In Harrisburg, Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday talked about a gradual reopening of the economy, but he did not provide a timeline or specifics. Wolf said he would rely on an “evidencebased, regional approach” guided by health experts and economists that will help him decide when it’s safe.

“There is no magic wand to wave to get us back to where we want to be,” said Wolf, unveiling his “Relief, Reopening, Recovery” plan at a video news conference Friday afternoon.

Wolf has imposed progressively tougher measures in the face of a pandemic that has sickened nearly 30,000 Pennsylvania residents and killed more than 750. Wolf shut down businesses deemed “non-life-sustaining,” closed schools through the end of the academic year and ordered all 12.8 million Pennsylvania residents to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. Just last week, the Wolf administration ordered people to wear masks inside supermarkets, pharmacies and other stores. The restrictions appear to be working as Pennsylvania has avoided the explosive growth in coronavirus cases that has overwhelmed hospitals in New York.

But those efforts to contain the pandemic have caused economic devastation, throwing almost 1.5 million Pennsylvania residents out of work, or nearly one in four workers. Wolf has been under increasing pressure from Republicans, trade associations and business owners to relax the restrictions.

Protesters gathered Monday in Harrisburg, the latest among demonstrations staged outside governors’ mansions and state Capitols across the country by groups defying social distancing rules to put pressure on governors to ease them, some voicing suspicion that the mitigation measures were ever necessary.

Like our local leaders, we’re standing with the science.

Health experts continue to warn that lifting restrictions too quickly could result in a surge of new cases of the virus.

We respect and commend our state and local officials for staying the course and emphasizing the message “We’re not there yet.” Opening the economy too soon will have disastrous effects on public health and in turn the economy if cases uptick as a result.

Let’s be patient. Persevere. And wait until we get there.