THE YEAR OF COVID
How pandemic has hit Delco — and changed our lives forever:
As of March 4,
38,388 county residents had tested positive for coronavirus;
1,290 had died because of it.
In the first week of March 2020, a Concord Township woman walked into the Emergency Department at CrozerChester Medical Center after she attended a conference in Boston, Mass. She wasn’t feeling well.
After months of circulating news about a seemingly distant virus, COVID-19, in that moment, the disease walked right into Delaware County and Pennsylvania as it spread rapidly and intensely, changing everyone’s lives in a way not seen here in more than a century, but still as profoundly.
As of March 4, 38,388 county residents had tested positive for coronavirus; 1,290 had died because of it.
The virus was unforgiving in
its brutality - and uncertain. It just as easily took an 84-year-old breast cancer survivor and grandmom as it did a 56-year-old firefighter and paramedic.
The first announcement of COVID in Pennsylvania was March 6, 2020 when state officials announced two simultaneous positive cases - the one here in Delaware County and another in Wayne County. A day later, Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek signed an emergency disaster declaration, as did Gov. Tom Wolf.
A week later, Delaware County schools announced they were taking one day to test their preparedness in the wake of coronavirus’ arrival. But that closure eventually became long-term with many classes transforming into online instruction. By fall, many parochial schools were completely open to in-person learning and most public schools had adopted a hybrid approach, where cohorts of students would alternate in-person and virtual learning.
At that point, the virus had been identified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic with more than 125,000 cases worldwide and 4,613 deaths. That has surged into more than 115 million cases worldwide, resulting in more than 2.5 million deaths.
Initial symptoms the public were told to watch included coughing, shortness of breath and fever. Health officials often repeated the need to wash hands for two minutes, stay 6 feet or more away from others and to stay home if feeling ill.
When COVID first presented in the United States, its spread was linked to droplets from coughing or sneezing. It was unknown if the virus could be spread from touching surfaces with the virus then touching one’s hands, mouth or eyes. Cleaning surfaces frequently became a normal protocol.
Store shelves went through empty periods, especially of cleaning items and toilet paper.
Churches and houses of worship began suspending in-person services by that second weekend in March out of concern for their congregants’s safety.
By March 16, two drivethrough COVID test sites had opened in Delaware County - a tent site at Penn Medicine in Radnor and another by Main Line Health at their facility at the Ellis Preserve in Newtown Square.
At that same time, Delaware County officials petitioned the governor and the Pennsylvania Department of Health to allow the Chester County Health Department to provide all COVID-related services for Delaware County residents. In the absence of Delco not having its own county health department, its needs were being provided by the state Department of Health, which also had to take care of about 50 other counties. That request was approved and Delaware County is on its way to opening its own county health department by January 2022.
On March 19, Wolf
ordered
all non-life-sustaining businesses closed as of
8 p.m. and four days later, he issued a stay-at-home order for Delaware, Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Monroe, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. By April
1, all of Pennsylvania was locked in a stay-at-home order as the virus continued to
proliferate.
At the end of March, the governor requested the public to wear masks in public. By April 18, it was mandatory for shoppers and essential workers in stores to don the cloth. Many pulled out their sewing machines to manufacture masks in bulk, particularly for front line workers as Personal Protective Equipment was scarce, and expensive at the beginning of the pandemic.
On April 9, 2020, Wolf closed schools for the remainder of the school year through June.
A color-coded system - red, yellow and green - identified locations based on number of positive cases with the most stringent mitigation protocols to those with the numbers declining and guidelines loosening. Some parts of northwest and central Pennsylvania began to reopen on May 8. Delaware County went into the yellow phase on June 5 and reached the green phase on June 26.
Through that time, Delaware County’s numbers have gone up and down. Spikes were seen around the July 4 period, as well as the holiday season at the end of the year. Relatedly, Wolf prohibited indoor dining, indoor gym and fitness facility operations and indoor entertainment centers such as bowling alleys and movie theaters for the last two weeks of 2020 because of the increase in COVID cases.
Many businesses, especially restaurants and small businesses from gyms to hair salons, were dramatically impacted and many closed and more lost their jobs. Food collections and drives became commonplace, as people sat in enormous lines in their cars throughout the county just to get some food.
Various programs were set up to try to assist the business community, including the Delco Strong program at the county level, which distributed more than $19 million to over 1,600 businesses and non-profit organizations. Just this month, Delaware County officials announced the distribution of $6.4 million through the state’s COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program for any business associated with the industry, including hotels, restaurants, bars and caterers. Parameters of the program can be seen at delcostrong.delcopa.org. and applications can be submitted from March 15 through April 16. Grants of up to
$50,000 are available. Similar to the onset of the availability of COVID testing, vaccine has been hard to get - and the message from state and federal officials has been confusing.
People have been placed into various classifications 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 - based on age and risk factors. There is no central registration or distribution for the vaccine. People have to scramble to find available doses at public or private providers.
As of March 4, the state had distributed almost 3.7 million doses of the PfizerBioNTech and Moderna vaccine. At the same time,
40,522 Delaware County residents had received their first dose of vaccine and
35,947 had received the full amount.
Zidek said council has been reaching out to the Pennsylvania Department of Health and has had numerous conversations with state senators and representatives, who have also been lobbying on the county’s behalf.
“At various times, the Department of Health seems to sort of acquiesce to the fact that perhaps we haven’t gotten our fair share and then later they will backtrack and say, ‘Well, no, you have gotten your fair share,’ so it’s still not entirely clear from my perspective what their position is,” he said. “We will update folks as we learn more. We have been and will continue to fight to try to make sure that Delaware County gets its fair share of vaccine so that our residents can get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
County officials expressed hope that as the spring progresses that the vaccine supply would improve.
As of March 1, the governor had lifted out-of-state travel restrictions that included quaranting for 14 days or getting a negative COVID test result for people who entered Pennsylvania from elsewhere.
Dr. Lisa O’Mahony, Delaware County’s interim physician advisor, said this action was taken based on the downward trend of cases in Pennsylvania and nationwide, testing of transportation employees and universal masking on public transportation.
In addition, the governor allowed for 15 percent occupancy indoors, regardless of the size of the facility, while 6-feet social distancing is observed.
“This is a limited loosening of mitigation efforts while recognizing that we need to maintain vigilance as new cases of variants continue to appear and experts warn of a possibility of a fourth surge in cases,” she said. “We’re certainly not out of the woods but things are looking like they are improving.”
TOMORROW: How the pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy.