Cheltenham man is 4th county death
Arkoosh pleads with Montco residents to ‘please stay home’
EAGLEVILLE Montgomery County officials reported a fourth coronavirus death in the county and revealed that nearly four dozen of the county’s municipalities have now reported positive cases of the virus.
A 95-year-old Cheltenham man became the fourth person to die during the COVID-19 epidemic and he was in a hospital at the time of his death, county Commissioners Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said during a Friday news briefing at the county emergency operations center in Eagleville.
“We continue to extend our deepest condolences from all of us here in our county family to the loved ones, friends and family members of this individual,” said Arkoosh, who was joined at the news conference by fellow commissioners Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr. and Joseph C. Gale, and Dr. Alvin Wang, regional EMS medical director, and Dr. Brenda Weis, administrator of the Office of Public Health.
Meanwhile, officials announced
58 new positive cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the county’s total number of cases to 371 since March 7.
The new cases included people from 30 municipalities, including three areas that reported their first cases – Hatboro Borough and Salford and West Pottsgrove townships.
“This brings us to 47 of our 62 municipalities that are home to individuals with COVID-19,” Arkoosh said.
The new cases in the county included 24 men and 34 women whose ages ranged between 12 and 83. One of the individuals is hospitalized, according to Arkoosh.
The news that the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise came at the end of the third week since the first positive case was reported in the county on March 7.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s only been three weeks. It feels more like three months to me and to all of our staff here. I want to thank everybody in this community who is part of the solution to COVID-19,” said Arkoosh, who thanked first responders, health care workers and hospital teams, nursing home workers and grocery store and pharmacy workers who have been providing essential services during the outbreak.
Arkoosh continued to reinforce the “social distancing measures” recommended by state and county health officials to help prevent
the spread of the virus.
County statistics indicate that a higher proportion of people in older age groups have required hospitalization, than those in their 20s or 30s, after contracting the virus. But Arkoosh said it’s equally important that younger people stay home and practice social distancing.
“To those of you who are not following these rules, you need to stay at home. And you need to acknowledge that every one of you who is breaking these rules for social distancing is increasing the chances that this pandemic lasts longer,” explained Arkoosh, who as a physician has been at the center of the county’s efforts to combat coronavirus and provide citizens with the latest information regarding the outbreak.
“Please, for the sake of all of us, for the sake of your parents and grandparents, for the sake of people who have underlying medical conditions or who are
immunocompromised … please stay home,” Arkoosh pleaded.
Arkoosh urged residents “to pull together as a community and work together” to stop the spread of the disease by staying home.
“This is how we beat this disease,” Arkoosh added. “What I want most of all is for this to be over and I want to reiterate that the way we get there is to stay home.”
Earlier, Arkoosh reiterated that the commissioners agree with the governor’s stay-at-home order issued on Monday for county residents.
“I do not support loosening of any of the very robust measures that we currently have in place because this is how we beat this thing. The key here is to keep all of us human beings at home, not interacting with people beyond our household contacts. The more we do that, the quicker we do that, the more completely we do that, the quicker this thing is going to be over,” said
Arkoosh, maintaining that loosening social distancing measures would let the virus spread and could potentially have a catastrophic impact on an overwhelmed health care system.
“And if we do this together and we hold tight on this, this will be over much more quickly than if we drag this thing out by loosening restrictions,” Arkoosh said.
Officials added the county’s community-based COVID-19 testing site at Temple University’s Ambler Campus in Upper Dublin, continues to be available. More than 1,631 people have been tested at the site since March 20.
The site will provide testing by appointment only. There will not be any treatment conducted at the site, which will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
The site will be closed on Sunday but will resume testing on Monday as testing supplies allow.
“There are a limited number of testing spots each day and they will be given out in a first-come firstserved basis,” Arkoosh explained. “We will continue to run our testing site for as long as we have the staff, the supplies and the testing capabilities to do this. We still have limits on the number of tests available.”
The link to register is available at www.montcopa.org/COVID-19 as well as at the county’s official social media accounts, officials said.
Individuals who do not have access to the Internet or do not have an email address can call 610-631-3000 at 8 a.m. daily to register for a testing appointment that day.