Editor’s note: COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of people in the northeast, caused high unemployment and destroyed the economy. In a series of ongoing stories, USA TODAY Network Atlantic Group, 37 news sites that add Beaver County Times and Ellwood City Ledger, examines the government’s reaction to the virus, what policies worked at the end, and why we remain vulnerable. the coronavirus moves harder in the fall.
A divided state and country led to a partisan pandemic in Pennsylvania. Democrats say Republicans put commercial interests before public health. Republicans say Democrats should be more involved in the economy.
Republican lawmakers have tried to strip Gov. Tom Wolf of emergency powers and reopen closed businesses, though the effort failed on the state’s Supreme Court.
With political strength in a presidential election year and Pennsylvania’s general policy department, Democratic lawmakers say there has been a federal leadership vacuum in a national strategy to combat the virus. Republican officials say the Democrats led us straight into a recession.
Here’s a look at what wasn’t painted in the spring, what was well painted and how innovations continue to be made.
That failed
If you ask Wolf, he’ll tell you that too many people have died, that the state didn’t do enough testing at first, and that the mask’s mandate will have to be followed because the pandemic didn’t end in Pennsylvania.
If you ask your critics, Maximum will say that it failed to build consensus, unnecessarily exposed the citizens of nursing homes, and broke the economy with excessive business closures.
Wolf presented a project and message when COVID-19 reached the state at the end of winter: flattening the curve.
Wolf seeks to prevent Pennsylvania from being like the nearby city of New York, where hospitals were overcrowded and some patients died in emergency rooms while awaiting treatment.
These objectives have been achieved. Pennsylvania has never run out of major hospital beds or fans, even when the virus peaked in April and caused nearly 3,000 COVID-19 infections and two hundred deaths a day in the state.
But by focusing on that, critics say, it has left some of Pennsylvania’s top citizens in long-term care facilities.
Republicans say the two biggest problems were allowing inflamed patients to return to nursing homes and avoiding state fitness inspections in the places that served the pandemic.
The state resumed inspections in the month following the State Department of Health.
Republicans also blame the governor for sending the state into recession with the closure of his business and orders to stay at home. Wolf said he sought to balance lives and livelihoods, but first had to do it to save lives.
When asked in late July what idea he had made and what he would have liked to do otherwise, Wolf had a brief answer.
“I’m thinking of all the things I could have done better, ” he said. “When you look at 7,000 dead, I don’t like it.”
More than 4,800 nursing home citizens died in the first five months of the Pennsylvania pandemic. That’s only about 70% of the 7,000 deaths in the state.
Long-term care services were left to the police when fitness officers stopped normal inspections, adding services with a long history of infection violations.
Wolf also said Pennsylvania more early tests.
“We didn’t take the tests. We haven’t gone looking for contacts,” he said.
Without a national strategy, states competed for non-public protective equipment, fans, verification kits, and verification swabs. There are more orders than supplies.
House and Senate Republicans criticized Wolf for making decisions unilaterally, saying he was in a force and had made the wrong decisions.
One of the governor’s top vocal critics is Republican Russ Diamond, a Lebanon County Republican who has led reopening demonstrations and opposed the governor’s masking mandate.
“At first, I gave Governor Wolf the advantages of doubt because everything is new and new,” Diamond said. “But after a few weeks, I think I knew I had made mistakes, but I wouldn’t recognize them or make them again. The stage in the nursing homes was a big mistake.”
Lebanon County Republican said the biggest mistake was allowing COVID-infected patients to receive care in nursing homes. To prevent hospitals from reaching their maximum capacity, the state told retirement homes in March to continue to settle for residents, including those with coronavirus.
Diamond believes this is how the virus spreads to nursing homes. But Levine said cases in nursing homes were higher because of who had brought infections to institutions.
The International Service Employees Union, the country’s largest fitness workforce union, said in the spring that frontline staff had sufficient non-public protective equipment.
“It’s outrageous that health professionals are being asked to make their own masks,” union president May Kay Henry said in a call in March. “Or worse, reuse them. If we wait, more fitness will be in danger and more lives will be lost.”
By the end of June, more than 50,000 citizens and reception centres had died across the country. In Pennsylvania, more than 7,000 long-term care service citizens died in the first six months of the year.
Diamond said poor control decisions had caused all those deaths. He is one of the legislators that the legislature deserves to have a say in emergency declarations and decisions.
Deputy Governor John Fetterman said it is impractical for Wolf to consult with the Legislature on each new development.
“In a crisis of this magnitude, you can’t consult with 252 other people about each and every decision,” Fetterman said. “The drafters have established in the Constitution that in times of crisis, it is up to the governor.”
Diamond said he didn’t know who Wolf had consulted. During the briefings, Governor and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine provided updates and answered questions, but there had never been any infectious disease experts with them.
“Who are the experts you consult? We don’t know who they consult or what their references are. Call the experts,” Diamond said.
The state’s leading epidemiologist is Dr. Sharon Watkins, but lately she can’t be had for interviews, according to Department of Health spokeswoman Nate Wardle.
“At the time, it was that Dr. Levine is the spokeswoman for COVID-19, because we believe she is the highest aware of the other facets of the disease, the response, the movements made, etc.,” Wardle says.
Watkins, a graduate of Ohio State University, is the director of the Office of Epidemiology, which includes the divisions of infectious diseases, environmental fitness and network fitness. He joined the Pennsylvania Department of Health in November 2015, having held positions of responsibility at the Florida Department of Health.
“The public will be able to listen to the state’s top infectious disease specialist and ask questions,” Diamond said.
As Democrats and Republicans collided, Pennsylvania’s economy was deteriorating as corporate closures and home maintenance orders led millions of state citizens to lose their jobs and claim unemployment benefits, after long and confusing waiting times.
Wolf issued these phased closures, starting with six counties in the southeast and gradually moving westward, but elsewhere, those measures did not resolve the economic difficulties that affected all the states where the pandemic developed.
Five months later, the consensus among many restaurateurs and advocates is that a federal or state bailout, the restaurant industry will be a shell in itself.
According to Pennsylvania Restaurant Accommodation Association President John Longstreet, the president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Accommodation Association provided short-term relief, while dinner and takeaway cocktails brought short-term relief, but not a permanent solution.
“Going to the yellow and green phase gave hope to places to eat,” he said. “You can hear the optimism (of the owners).” But an order in July to close bars that don’t serve food and the ability of places to eat at 25% “has been devastating.”
The Restaurants Act, which provides $120 billion in aid to independent restaurants, is coming to Congress. But until it’s approved, recent relief in national ability and stricter rules to promote beverages will continue to affect Pennsylvania restaurateurs.
For a while, Wolf had dismissed questions about when to restart the state’s economy, insisting that he focused on managing an unprecedented fitness crisis. He warned that opening up the economy too soon, when consumers and businesses were un comfortable, made no monetary sense and could lead to a resurgence of the virus.
But even when the state sees a slow return to normality, cities are still on leave and firing employees, and the government has already ordered state agencies to start making budget cuts.
The coronavirus pandemic has Pennsylvania’s economy in recession.
Pandemic unemployment assistance and the paycheck coverage program provided a source of income for some government residents. But those systems have an expiration date and “this virus doesn’t,” said Secretary of State for Labor and Industry Jerry Oleksiak.
High unemployment and the current public health crisis make economists agree on one thing: Pennsylvania will return to the prosperity it had before coronavirus for years.
That worked
Wolf acted quickly.
The first two cases of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania were documented on March 6. Within a week, Wolf issued closing orders in six Philadelphia-area counties and closed for two weeks.
On March 18, the first coronavirus-related death was reported and Wolf closed all non-life business the next day.
“I think it could have been worse if we hadn’t acted early,” Wolf said.
“I would have it,” Levine says.
The former governors agree.
“As a former governor of Pennsylvania, I know very well the importance of swift action to keep Pennsylvanians safe during a crisis,” said former Governor Mark Schweiker, Republican. “The Wolf government has worked on this pandemic to protect our citizens and keep our economy moving during these difficult times.
“A global pandemic like this demands leadership and immediate action for devastating effects on our citizens and our society,” said former Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat. “Wolf’s government mitigation efforts have been effective and physically powerful and, as a result, have stocked the lives of countless Pennsylvanians.”
Wolf recently performed again temporarily. As cases in Pennsylvania increased, he issued a masking order in public spaces. Some Republicans are fighting it, yet most Pennsylvaniaers seem to stick to the directive.
Schweiker, Rendell and Ridge said that additional accumulation in some cases had led Wolf to take appropriate action.
“The recent increase means that we want to unite ourselves as a Commonwealth to prevent the spread of this disease and ensure the protection of our citizens and communities,” Rendell said. “The governor’s new executive order on mitigation is the right thing to do, it’s measured, and Pennsylvania will be bigger and safer for that.”
“These summer measures, in my opinion, are a component of a strategy to help us at a time of fitness and economic crisis later in the year,” Schweiker said. “Using the mask is like saying: we beat the virus now, not later, when it’s possibly too late.”
Wolf and Levine have faced widespread complaints about their decisions. But they continued to aim to fight the disease of the exchange of insults, according to J.J. Abbott, chief executive of Commonwealth Communications, a nonprofit progressive group.
“The intern was incredibly diplomatic,” said Abbott, who was Wolf’s past press secretary. “It doesn’t go from side to side because he sees it as a waste of time, given the magnitude of the challenge before him.”
Wolf scored around 70% for his coronavirus management, according to Fox News and Monmouth University surveys. The Democratic and Republican electorate gives it the best ratings, according to polls.
His higher approval ratings contrast with those of President Trump, who criticized Wolf for not reopening counties faster.
Wolf did not respond to the president’s criticism and kept a low profile on the national stage. He has not toured national media interviews and does not seem to be looking to create a non-public brand.
Wolf’s management was able to get the most out of what he asked the federal government for.
Although the state’s demands for major enthusiasts and control materials were not met, Pennsylvania won more protective devices than it had asked the Trump administration to do.
The state won more than 173,000 face protectors, 142,000 surgical gowns, nearly 837,000 gloves, 714,500 masks and more than 2 million N-95 masks.
In total, Pennsylvania earned more than 2 million more than it requested, according to data from the State Department of Health.
What you want to do
To beat the last wave, Pennsylvania residents will have to wear a mask and the tests will have to continue to increase, Wolf and Levine agree.
The state examines between 15,000 and 20,000 people a day. The point reached 28,000 tests consistent with the day at any given time, Levine said.
U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, an Allegheny County Democrat, said the evidence was one of two “fundamental issues” that need to be addressed. One lack of non-public protective devices is the other.
Domestic production of EPI is still scheduled, Lamb said. This puts the country in a precarious position if COVID-19 bounces primaryly. The evidence, he said, “is a failure of the federal government to coordinate this and make sure that other people can solve those problems.”
Lamb said persistence with the evidence demonstrated Trump’s inability to deliver “World War II-level leadership” to a country fighting a pandemic.
“The advice I can give,” Lamb said, “is to start taking the challenge more seriously and embrace your own strength as president to try to solve it.”
Beaver County commissioner Jack Manning, a Republican, said he hoped there would be “more teeth” in nursing home inspections to prepare for a momentary wave. The Brighton Wellness and Rehabilitation Center in your county has been one of the worst nursing home outbreaks in the state and has a history of poor inspection results.
When asked what may be the biggest impediment to the public in a wave of moments, Manning over the skepticism that engulfed the pandemic.
“What I think will stop us is that the public is uniformly prepared for this drag and needs nothing to do about it,” he said.
Manning said there is a safe segment of the population that remains indifferent, living “in a bubble” related to the virus. But, he said, elected officials should continue to emphasize the importance of the mask and how fatal COVID-19 can be.
“We have to be diligent and persevering,” he said.
Meanwhile, SEIU is calling for adjustments that end legal protections for long-term care center operators.
State rep. Josh Kail of R-Beaver County said legislative action should be taken to give “integral immunity” to those fighting COVID-19 in the medical and fitness fields to eliminate the worry of prosecution. Kail said the concern has a “deterrent effect” on workers.
“I didn’t realize the magnitude until we went through it,” he said.
Manning said he hopes there will be “more teeth” in nursing home inspections to prepare for a momentary wave.
Asked what the biggest impediment will be with the public in a moment of the wave, Manning presses on the skepticism that surrounds the pandemic.
“What I think will stop us is that the public is uniformly prepared for this drag and needs nothing to do about it,” he said.
Manning said there is a safe segment of the population that remains indifferent, living “in a bubble” related to the virus. But, he said, elected officials should continue to emphasize the importance of the mask and how fatal COVID-19 can be.
“We have to be diligent and persevering,” he said.
York Daily Record hounds Sam Ruland and Neil Strebig contributed to the report.
J.D. Prose and Candy Woodall are for USA Today.
Gannett (c) USA TODAY NETWORK