PA Gov. Tom Wolf (right) at a recent virtual press update
Gov. Tom Wolf has extended his “stay-at-home” order for much of Pennsylvania until June 4.
On Thursday night, Wolf released a statement saying that the order, which was due to expire at midnight, would be extended for nearly another month in all areas of the commonwealth under the “red” category.
This includes all of south-central Pennsylvania, as well as the southeast and northeast portions of the state.
On Friday, 24 counties in the northwest and north-central parts of Pennsylvania will move to the “yellow” category, which will relax business restrictions and stay-at-home orders in those areas. These restrictions have been in place statewide since March.
Wolf also said that, on Friday, he would announce that additional counties would move into the yellow category at a “to-be-determined” date. These counties are expected to be in the southwest portion of the state, as many of those counties have shown relatively light cases of COVID-19.
To guide reopening decisions, the state is using a “risk-based decision support tool” developed by Carnegie Mellon University. This analysis tool factors in such criteria as reported number of COVID cases per population of an area; ICU and medical/surgical bed capacity; population density; population over age 60; and re-opening contact risk, such as the number of workers employed in a currently closed industry sector.
No county is yet in the “green” phase, which indicates a general reopening, as long as state Department of Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines are followed.
