A healthcare worker talks with a patient at a COVID-19 testing site near Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, Tuesday, March 24, 2020, in Philadelphia. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.
Matt Slocum / AP Photo
Matt Slocum / AP Photo
A healthcare worker talks with a patient at a COVID-19 testing site near Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, Tuesday, March 24, 2020, in Philadelphia. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.
What you should knowWith our coronavirus coverage, our goal is to equip you with the information you need. Rather than chase every update, we’ll try to keep things in context and focus on helping you make decisions. See all of our stories here.
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» Day-by-day look at coronavirus disease cases in Pa.
» It’s time to get serious about social distancing. Here’s how.
(Harrisburg) — An order that restricts people’s movement is being expanded to nine additional Pennsylvania counties, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday as his administration confirmed more coronavirus cases and deaths.
Wolf said in a statement that the expanded stay-at-home order, which starts Friday at 8 p.m. and will last until at least April 6, impacts a total of 19 counties. The new counties under the order are Berks, Butler, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Luzerne, Pike, Wayne, Westmoreland and York.
The stay-at-home order restricts movement to certain health or safety-related travel, or travel to a job at an employer designated by Wolf’s administration as “life-sustaining.”
Even before Friday’s order, half of Pennsylvania’s 12.8 million residents were under a stay-at-order in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and give the state’s hospitals time to increase its staffing, equipment and bed space.
Meanwhile, Wolf signed a package of coronavirus-related legislation that passed the Legislature earlier this week.
A look at coronavirus-related developments in Pennsylvania:
Wolf’s administration said it had confirmed more than 530 new cases through midnight Thursday, a 30% jump to more than 2,200, and six more deaths for a total of 22.
More counties, 50 of the state’s 67 counties, are seeing their first coronavirus cases, while at least 17 nursing homes have reported a case, according to the state Department of Health.
There are 205 confirmed cases in central Pennsylvania counties: couples-across-pennsylvania-scramble-to-revamp-wedding-honeymoon-plansAdams (8), Berks (65), Columbia (3), Cumberland (16), Dauphin (18), Franklin (5), Juniata (1), Lancaster (33), Lebanon (12), Northumberland (1), Schuylkill (13), Union (1) and York (29).
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said Friday that the city has reached an agreement with Temple University to use the Liacouras Center and possibly other Temple facilities for overflow hospital space, including the pavilion and parking garage.
The Liacouras Center is a 10,000-seat multi-purpose center and will be able to handle at least 250 patients at first. City officials say they are moving quickly to get supplies and the physical aspects of the facility set up.
Meanwhile, a shuttered reform school for boys in suburban Philadelphia may be used as a medical overflow facility.
The Glen Mills School has medical and dental facilities, an air field, a generator and a more than 85,000 square-foot athletic facility that could host patients from hospitals and other health care facilities.
Wolf’s administration has stressed the need for hospitals to ramp up equipment, staffing and bed space to handle the expected surge in coronavirus patients in the coming weeks.
Among the facilities being considered are hotels and outpatient surgical facilities, Health Secretary Rachel Levine has said.
Tim Boyce, executive director of Delaware County’s Emergency Management Agency, told WPVI-TV in Philadelphia that the Glen Mills School will start with 250 beds, but could be expanded.
The school was a reform school and juvenile detention facility serving about 200 boys, but Wolf’s administration revoked the school’s licenses and ordered its students removed after The Philadelphia Inquirer detailed decades of alleged abuse and cover-ups at the 193-year-old campus.
Wolf’s administration said Friday that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, along with federal and local government agencies, is assessing a number of sites across the state to become housing or medical facilities. No plans or agreements have been finalized, according to the administration.
As a whole, Pennsylvania has 37,000 hospital beds, although many are occupied. More than 1,300 of Pennsylvania’s confirmed coronavirus cases, or 60%, are in Philadelphia or its four suburban counties.
Pennsylvanians filed another 48,000 unemployment compensation claims on Thursday, according to information from Wolf’s administration.
That means Pennsylvanians have filed nearly 700,000 claims over the past 12 days as Wolf ordered thousands of “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
In the seven days through last Saturday, Pennsylvanians filed about 379,000 claims, the most in the nation and smashing the state’s record for an entire week.
In the four days since then, Pennsylvanians have filed another 319,000, putting the state on course to break last week’s record.
PennDot said Friday afternoon it has re-opened five interstate highway rest stops, including one in York County:
The agency had closed 30 rest stops on March 17 in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus. On Tuesday, 23 re-opened, meaning that 28 of the rest areas now have indoor facilities open. See the list here. PennDOT said additional cleaning and maintenance will take place at the re-opened areas.
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