UPDATED: 4/26/20, 1:40 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — 1,116 new cases of coronavirus were reported by Pennsylvania's Department of Health Sunday, bringing the statewide total to 41,165. To date, 1,550 people have died from the virus across the commonwealth.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said while plans are underway to prepare to reopen portions of the state beginning May 8, things won't be the same as they were before the pandemic.
"I think that the idea, and the governor has spoken about this, that we're going to go back to exactly how we were before, at least for the forseable future, is unlikely," she said. "I think that there will be a new normal."
In order to go from red to yellow in terms of reopening businesses, Levine spoke of targets the state needs to hit.
"One of the target goals for reopening has been set at having fewer than 50 new confirmed cases per 100,000 population reported to the department in the previous 14 days," she declared. Areas of the state with higher population density like Philadelphia could take longer to begin to reopen.
There are additional metrics to consider as well.
Increasing testing resources is one of the main prerequisites to reopening portions of the state, though Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said she doesn't yet have a number of how many additional tests would be needed.
"We particularly want to target testing in those areas that the governor identifies will go from red to yellow," she explained. "We're going to want to make sure that we're able to do testing of even mildly symptomatic Pennsylvanians so that we can prevent any potential outbreak in those regions."
But Levine conceded the shortage of testing resources has been a problem.
"And that includes all aspects of testing. It has included the swabs, the sterile salt water that is used after we collect the specimen, and in terms of the extraction of the chemicals and the testing chemicals, so it all has been a challenge in terms of that resource supply," she detailed.
The secretary acknowledged, however, that they have been doing better in terms of supplies recently.
"Our state laboratory in the last week has obtained a significant number of supplies so we can do more testing and we have heard from many hospitals and health systems that they are doing better with their reagents and they are able to expand their own testing," she said.
Levine said the federal government has sent two shipments of N-95 masks to Pennsylvania and has indicated they will no longer able to send additional supplies at this point because their supply is low. She said the state is doing what it can though to independently procure surgical masks, gowns and gloves, which now seem to be in short supply.
Other metrics Levine said they'll be taking into consideration include the ability to conduct contact tracing, as well as bed and surge capacity at nearby hospitals.
"And that's one of the reasons actually why we're looking on a regional basis, because some of the particular rural counties don't have a lot of hospitals," she said.
Philadelphia updates case count
Philadelphia's Department of Health reported 237 new cases of coronavirus Sunday, raising the city's total to 12,566 cases. Of that total, 965 have been hospitalized.
Six additional fatalities were reported. 472 people have died from COVID-19 to date.
KYW's Hadas Kuznits contributed to this story.
Stay with KYW Newsradio for more information.
