Montco reports 101 new cases; death toll rises to 417
Montgomery County officials reported three more deaths from COVID-19 on Monday and also reacted to the news that one of the commissioners has tested positive for the virus.
The latest three deaths included individuals who ranged in age from 79 to 88 and the deaths bring the county’s death toll to 417 since March 7 when the first two cases of the virus were identified in the county.
To date, 227 females and 190 males have died from the virus in the county, Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said during a Monday news briefing at which officials updated
the public about the coronavirus outbreak. Officials said the racial breakdown for those that have died included: 12 Asian; three Asian Indian; three Asian Korean; 40 African American; and 110 white. Information about the ethnicity of the remaining 249 individuals was unavailable.
The 417 total deaths were “confirmed positive” COVID-19 cases through the use of lab tests, explained Arkoosh, who was joined at the news briefing by fellow commissioners Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr. and Joseph C. Gale.
Officials reported last week that as many as 185 other deaths in the county have been listed as “probable” COVID-19 deaths. Those are deaths that list COVID-19 as a cause of death on a death certificate but in which there was no laboratory confirmation of the virus.
Meanwhile, officials reported a total of 101 new positive cases of the virus since Saturday, bringing the county’s total number of cases to 5,110. Eighteen of the latest individuals to test positive resided in longterm care facilities in the county.
The commissioners held their daily briefing virtually, each speaking from their homes or offices, and did not appear in-person at the county Emergency Operation Center in Eagleville where they have held daily briefings since March 7. The decision to hold a virtual hearing came after Lawrence learned he tested positive for COVID-19 after being tested at a community pop-up testing site in Pottstown on Saturday.
“Much to my shock the test came back positive. I think this is an example that we need more community testing but also that asymptomatic people can be positive and never know. While I was not planning on getting tested, I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to do so,” said Lawrence, adding he will be in self-isolation for 14 days.
Given Lawrence’s positive test, Arkoosh indicated she also was tested.
“We will base our next steps based on the results of those tests. We will be working from home for now and we’ll keep you posted as we get additional test results back,” Arkoosh said.
But Gale said he has no plans to be tested for the virus.
“Thankfully, I am young and I feel healthy and in my opinion we should leave the testing kits for people that are symptomatic, for those who have household contacts that have underlying conditions and individuals that are more likely to end up being hospitalized if they were to contract COVID-19,” Gale said. “I will continue to live my life responsibly whether or not I am tested.
“Testing will not reopen Montgomery County. Testing will only inflate the number of positive tests. And it’s my belief that the answer is not mass testing and the answer should be putting more focus on long-term care facilities and that’s something our staff in the Office of Public Health is doing a great job of tackling,” Gale added.
Gale claimed the county has “flattened-the-curve” of the virus and is seeing a decrease in the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 and he said the reality of the virus is “we’ll never have zero cases,” especially not until there is a vaccine.
“I’m not buying into the mass testing frenzy. We must open Montgomery County and we must open
Montgomery County soon,” said Gale, the lone Republican on the three-member commissioners’ board.
Arkoosh reminded residents that Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order has been extended to June 4 for counties that remain in the “red-phase” of the governor’s color-coded plan to reopen the state, which includes Montgomery County. Arkoosh has said relaxing current mitigation measures, such as social distancing, too soon could have devastating consequences and cause a surge in positive cases in the county and overwhelm hospitals and first responders.
“I want to reiterate Commissioner Lawrence’s comment that we don’t know who’s positive and contagious and how important it is to take personal responsibility for how you interact with your household contacts, with your community, when you run out to the grocery store and to make sure you make as few trips as possible to as few locations as possible. And to just assume that you could be that person that’s asymptomatic but contagious and potentially able to transmit COVID-19 to someone else,” Arkoosh said. “Do everything that you can to stay safe and to stay at home as much as possible.
“The good news is, because of your many sacrifices, our trend lines are all going in the right direction. We want to get these numbers down as quickly as possible so that we can safely start to relax the guidelines that we’ve been living under so that some of our businesses can get back to work…but we want to make sure that we do that safely and avoid what would be the most unfortunate outcome which is to have to go backward,” Arkoosh added.
Officials said they continue to monitor coronavirus data from the 75 longterm care facilities in the county that are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health as well as from “other congregate care settings” in the county, for a total of about 620 facilities.
As of Monday, 93 of the facilities reported positive COVID-19 cases among residents and staff. Specifically, officials reported there are 1,409 cases among residents of the facilities and 562 cases among staff at the facilities, for a total of 1,971 positive individuals.
“We do continue to track these cases separately. We believe it’s important that all involved understand the very real challenge that is being faced in many of our long-term care facilities,” Arkoosh said.