Stay-at-home order expands to nine more counties

HARRISBURG » Gov. Tom Wolf put another 2.5 million Pennsylvania residents under an order that restricts people from leaving home Friday, as his administration confirmed more coronavirus cases and deaths and major facilities were enlisted to help with hospital overflows.

Wolf, in a statement, added nine counties to 10 already covered by the order, for a total of 19 counties and three-fourths of the state’s 12.8 million residents.

The stay-at-home order starts at 8 p.m. Friday for Berks, Butler, Lackawanna,

Lancaster, Luzerne, Pike, Wayne, Westmoreland and York counties, and will last until at least April 6.

The stay-at-home order restricts movement to certain health or safety-related travel, or travel to a job at an employer designated by Wolf’s administration as “life-sustaining.”

The measures are designed to slow the spread of the virus and give the state’s hospitals time to increase its staffing, equipment and bed space.

There is no curfew, and no reports of police arrests for someone breaking the order. City officials under the order have generally said that enforcement is focused on letting people know about it, breaking up crowds or closing public areas to prevent people from gathering.

Wolf issued the first stayat-home order Monday, a day after Philadelphia issued its own, and Health Secretary Rachel Levine said it’s not clear yet whether the orders are effective.

“They haven’t been in place long enough,” Levine said at a news conference Friday. “It’ll take weeks and weeks to see the effect.”

Those new counties became candidates for the order as increases in confirmed coronavirus cases there grew to a “significant level and we have evidence of community spread,” Levine said.