Bogen: Vaccines helping return to normal
With people returning to activities like the Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pirates games, concerts and even working in offices, Allegheny County Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen said Wednesday that “vaccines are helping us return to a world we once knew.”
At a news conference, Dr. Bogen recounted her switch from academia to the county Health Department and starting her current position two months ahead of schedule because of the looming pandemic.
“Comfort was no longer an option,” she said. “COVID-19 became the all-consuming focus of all of our lives for more than a year. We’re all starting to really regain our lost sense of comfort, and I believe this comfort is sustainable if we all do the right things.”
Further evidence of the opening of society and the economy came Wednesday when the city
of Pittsburgh announced its employees will begin returning to their offices in phases over the next several weeks, the first time since shifting largely to remote work in March 2020. And Rivers Casino restarted construction of a luxury hotel, work that was halted during the pandemic.
At the news conference with Dr. Bogen, county Executive Rich Fitzgerald said that the county’s progress “continues to be tremendous” in terms of vaccination rates and the decline in the number of cases of the virus.
“It’s wonderful to see so many people coming together to work to get as many people vaccinated as we can, to get back to the normalcy we would all like to see,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
It has been nearly 2½ weeks since the state lifted all restrictions — except the mask mandate for the unvaccinated — and COVID-19 cases continue to remain relatively low. The Allegheny County Health Department on Wednesday announced 10 new COVID- 19- related deaths and 65 new cases in the past 48 hours.
The jump in deaths was attributed to “an import from the state Electronic Death Reporting System,” the Health Department said.
The deaths also date back to Jan. 28, with the most recent of the 10 being on June 15. Of the victims, two were in the 25 to 49 age group, one between the ages of 50 and 64, and seven people were 65 or older.
“I truly look forward to a briefing where I report no deaths from COVID,” Dr. Bogen said.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Health on Wednesday reported 17 deaths along with 312 positive cases of COVID-19. The latest report is more than 100 cases less than the 453 cases reported Tuesday.
Since the pandemic began over a year ago, 1,972 people in Allegheny County and 27,531 people across the state have died as a result of the virus. The state has had 1,209,448 cases of COVID-19, 101,715 of which were in Allegheny County.
Pennsylvania’s percent positivity has also dropped again, going from 2.9% during the week of May 28 to June 3, to 1.9% during the week of June 4 to June 10.
Dr. Bogen reported Wednesday that the average number of cases per day dropped to 25 over the past two weeks. During her previous report on June 2, the county was averaging about 50 cases per day.
“[It’s] really remarkable when you considered that just 2½ months ago, we were firmly entrenched in a fourth wave and experiencing daily cases of around 500,” she said. “The ‘why’ is not a mystery. It’s the vaccines.”
The state Health Department reported that Pennsylvania is ranked ninth among the states for first doses administered by percentage of population.
On Wednesday, the state reported that 57.8% of the its 18-and-over population is fully vaccinated, while 61.1% of the entire population has received at least one dose.
The state is nearing its goal of having 70% of the population fully vaccinated, which is when the order will be lifted mandating unvaccinated people to wear a mask anywhere outside their homes. Top health officials believe that goal can still be met, but if it isn’t, the order still will be lifted by June 28.
In Allegheny County, vaccination rates are a bit higher than the state’s. Overall, 76% of adults in the county are fully vaccinated, according to the county’s Health Department.
About half of the county’s population ages 15 to 19 are partially vaccinated, Dr. Bogen said.
She also urged those who were vaccinated to reach out “in a caring, thoughtful way to people in your lives who have not yet been vaccinated.”
“Listen to their concerns, and then do what you can to comfort them and convince them that vaccines work — because they really do, and the numbers prove it,” Dr. Bogen said.
The county has given out approximately 1.3 million doses of the vaccine and has had only 420 breakthrough cases of the virus — people who get COVID-19 after vaccinations, according to Dr. Bogen.
Mr. Fitzgerald also touched on some of the efforts local organizations have been making to get the county vaccinated, such as the Pirates giving out free game tickets to those who choose to get vaccinated, or the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium offering free admittance to those who receive a shot at its clinic.
On Thursday, the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs will be hosting a vaccination clinic at the Southwestern Veterans Center on Highland Drive in Lincoln-Lemington.
The clinic will be broken up into two sessions. The first will run from 10 a.m. to noon and will be open to residents and staff who have not yet been vaccinated, as well as their family members, visitors and volunteers.
From noon to 2 p.m., the clinic will open to the general public. Appointments are not necessary, but the clinic is on a first-come, firstserved basis.
In Pittsburgh beginning Monday, staff from the Office of Community Health and Safety, Office of Community Affairs, Department of Finance, and the mayor’s office will go back to working in-person. Other departments will make the shift over the next five weeks.
“We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with mitigation measures being lifted and new daily COVID-19 cases dropping,” Mayor Bill Peduto wrote in a statement. “All city public services and operations are essential, and I am proud of the work that our front-line and remote employees have done throughout the pandemic.”
“As things are looking up and more folks are getting vaccinated, we just think it’s a safe time for us to bring our employees and staff back Downtown, keeping in mind that folks will still have child care needs, family needs, and we’ll make some reasonable accommodations for continuing to telework and telework plans,” Molly Onufer, a mayoral spokeswoman, said. “We just think it’s a good time to come back Downtown.”
Ahead of employees’ return, the city said it has cleaned all HVAC systems and offices and will provide masks, hand sanitizer and wipes. Schedules will also be staggered to allow for social distancing when necessary.
According to Ms. Onufer, the city service’s plan to return was based on an employee survey.
‘We wanted to get that feedback of what felt comfortable for staff as we were making the plans to move back,” she said. “It’s definitely a change, but our staff quickly pivoted and there were minimal to no disruptions in city services when we moved out of the office, so we don’t anticipate many disruptions to public services as we are moving back into the service.”
Some services will still be done virtually. Among them, the OneStopPGH portal for zoning and development licenses, applications and permits. Boards, commissions and City Council will continue to meet remotely as well.
This influx of Downtown city employees moves Pittsburgh closer to normalcy following reopenings such as restaurants returning to full capacity, the restart of Market Square’s Saturday Night Market and eased mask restrictions.
“We’re really looking forward to having our staff back as well as more companies and organizations Downtown as they bring their staffs back, seeing Downtown as ‘summer in the city’ as we used to see before the pandemic,” Ms. Onufer said. “We’re obviously looking forward to continuing to see people come back and the businesses thriving Downtown.”