He said looking at those numbers separately is the best way forward without, as he puts it, confusing the two groups.
Bucks County commissioners released a letter they sent the governor last week, asking him to decrease the reliance on the per capita number of new cases and to separate out the nursing home cases.
They say about 10% or less of their daily cases are community spread, meaning the people who got the virus couldn’t say where they got it.
In a virtual town hall, Bucks County Commissioner Diane Marseglia addressed claims for a resident that the number of cases in Philadelphia was the driving force behind keeping strict social distancing in place in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
“Philadelphia’s really not having the impact. The impact is the amount of cases in our nursing homes because they’ve been so vulnerable and hit so hard. And yes, we did write to the governor and we did ask if those numbers could be separated,” she said.
But Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said they’re not going to separate out long-term care facility numbers.
Related
“One section of our community, such as a nursing home or personal care home, impacts the general community, and the community impacts that facility,” Levine said.
Levine has said the number of new cases is just one factor in considering when it’s safe to move forward.
"Learning to live" with coronavirus threat
The chairwoman of the Montgomery County Commissioners told state senators Monday the task of reopening the state’s economy will come down to “learning to live” with the coronavirus threat.
Montgomery County Commissioners Chairwoman Dr. Val Arkoosh took part in a state Senate hearing on the Wolf administration’s plans to ease the pandemic lockdown, saying that hard-hit Montgomery County is starting to “turn the corner.”
“We are seeing our case numbers start to slow, which we’re extremely pleased about. And we’ve been spending a lot of time here thinking about how we move into the next phase, which I’m going to describe as learning to live with this virus,” she said.
Arkoosh said the task will be relaxing restrictions, guided by data and evidence, in a way that allows economic activity to resume and schools to reopen in the fall, while minimizing the number of deaths, and ensuring hospitals can manage which she believes will be the inevitable surge in cases that will come.
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