Montgomery County data show virus suppression
HARRISBURG >> Montgomery County recorded a coronavirus positivity rate that indicates the county is beginning to suppress the virus, according to the latest week-to-week data compiled by state health officials.
For the seven-day period March 5-11, the county recorded a COVID-19 percent-positivity rate of 4.8%, which was down from the 5.1% positivity rate recorded for the previous seven-day period Feb. 26-March 4, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard.
Health officials believe having a positivity rate less than 5% indicates a county is controlling the spread of the virus and keeping it
suppressed.
The county recorded the first two cases of the virus March 7, 2020, and this week marks the 54th week since the virus surfaced in the county.
Chester County is the only other county in the Southeast Pennsylvania region to record a COVID-19 positivity rate less than 5% for the period ending March 11. Chester County’s current 4.3% positivity rate was a decrease from the 4.7% positivity rate recorded the previous week, according to state data.
Montgomery County’s other neighboring counties recorded the following percent-positivity rates during the seven-day period ending March 11: Berks (7.8%); Bucks (6.7%); Lehigh (6.4%); Delaware (5.4%); and Philadelphia (5.3%), according to state statistics.
Gov. Tom Wolf said the state’s COVID-19 dashboard is designed to provide early warning signs of factors that affect the state’s mitigation efforts.
The statewide percent-positivity rate as of March 11 was 5.7% and remained unchanged and stable from the previous week, according to the dashboard.
“Our case counts continue to go down, hospitalizations are declining and the percent positivity rate gests lower every week – all positive signs,” Wolf said on Monday. “The number of people getting vaccinated increases daily and we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel.”
State and local officials urged citizens to continue to abide by COVID-19
mitigation measures, downloading the COVID Alert PA app, and getting vaccinated when it’s their turn.
COVID Alert PA is a free mobile app, offered by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, that uses Bluetooth low energy technology and the Exposure Notification System, created jointly by Google and Apple, to notify and give public health guidance to anyone
who may have been in close contact with a person who also has the app and has tested positive for COVID-19.
“We’ve come so far and now is not the time to stop the safety measures we have in place to protect ourselves, our families and our communities,” Wolf said. “Keep wearing a mask, social distancing and, please, get vaccinated when it’s your turn.”
Former president Donald Trump was so eager to pull the plug in Afghanistan that in midNovember, shortly after the election, he impulsively signed an order to withdraw U.S. forces by year’s end. Pentagon officials tell me the unpublicized order was quickly reversed, after strenuous protests from Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders. They argued that there hadn’t been sufficient debate about the consequences of dropping to zero by the end of December.
The order underscores the chaotic nature of national security policymaking in Trump’s administration. It was drafted by retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a longtime critic of the Afghanistan mission, who was then serving as a special adviser to acting defense secretary Christopher Miller. Asked about the order this week, Macgregor responded in an email: “I cannot comment at this time.”
But Trump’s ill-considered move also illustrates the problem bedeviling President Biden as he confronts a May 1 deadline to withdraw completely from Afghanistan negotiated by his predecessor. Trump had a troop-withdrawal plan for the United States’ longest war, but not a peace plan.
Biden is now rushing to fill the diplomatic vacuum, guided by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Zalmay Khalilzad, who is continuing in the role of special envoy that he held under Trump. They have crafted an ambitious plan to work with the United Nations, Russia and Turkey to shape a power-sharing interim government and a cease-fire before the May 1 deadline, if possible.
For all the window dressing of the February 2020 agreement with the Taliban, Trump’s aim in Afghanistan could be summed up in two words: Get out. Officials tell me Trump had demanded back in December 2018 that U.S. troops quit Afghanistan, as well as Syria. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest; the Pentagon delayed implementing both orders, fearing significant damage to U.S. security interests.
The Biden team is rehabilitating a diplomatic process that, despite Khalilzad’s efforts, never had much support from Trump. Biden’s dilemma, simply put, is that if he meets Trump’s withdrawal deadline, the Kabul government is likely to collapse into a chaotic civil war. What’s needed is an additional agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government for sharing power and a cease-fire.
Blinken embraced a wily strategy, which can be read between the lines of a three-page letter he wrote to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that was published last week by Tolo News in Kabul.
By stressing that Biden is indeed “considering the full withdrawal of our forces by May 1st,” the letter pressured Ghani to make significant concessions, perhaps including resigning as president before his term expires in 2024, to allow a new interim government.
What’s ahead is a three-step process to get regional and international buy-in. First, the United Nations is expected to convene a quick meeting of foreign ministers - probably from the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran. This group would give its blessing to cease-fire negotiations and political transition talks between the Afghan parties.
Next would be a round of talks in Moscow, starting March 18, organized by Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan. He would convene what the Russians call the “enlarged troika” group, which includes Russia, China, the United States, Pakistan and Iran.
The last round envisaged by Blinken would be meetings in Turkey, perhaps beginning in early April, between Taliban and Kabul government representatives. The goal, Blinken said in his letter, would be to “finalize a peace agreement.” If that transitional framework and ceasefire could be achieved, the United States might begin a slow walk toward the exit.
Afghanistan would still remain the problem from hell. Political turmoil, a renewed threat of terrorism and human-rights issues lie ahead, no matter what happens over the next several months.
Still, to end its longest war, the Biden administration is willing to take the calculated risk of including some of its most problematic adversaries — Russia, China and Iran — and to let the mercurial regime in Turkey organize the wedding festival.
Its canny approach recalls an old saw: “If you can’t solve a problem, expand it.”