Daily Policy Update

Each day a summary of news and information that has been gathered from community partners and credible news sites will be posted.

Governor:

“Governor Wolf Announces New Funding for Agriculture, Business Development Projects” : https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/governor-wolf-announces-new-funding-for-agriculture-business-development-projects/
“Gov. Wolf: 12 More Counties to Move to Yellow Phase on May 22” : https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/gov-wolf-12-more-counties-to-move-to-yellow-phase-on-may-22/

State Government:

General COVID resources: https://www.pa.gov/guides/responding-to-covid-19/

Dept. of Agriculture:

“Department of Agriculture Highlights Pennsylvania Food Rescues, Outlines Steps to Reduce Food Waste, Feed Hungry during COVID-19” : https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/Agriculture_details.aspx?newsid=924

Dept. of Health:

“Department of Health Provides Update on COVID-19, 986 Positives Bring Statewide Total to 60,622” : https://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/Health-Details.aspx?newsid=810
- Link to Statewide map of testing sites: https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Symptoms-Testing.aspx?fbclid=IwAR0q72qATsxBX9zL0KMErYO_OQZutSgVMY1I4fEEa8-3zcHN_7WixZ-VFAY
- COVID-19 Data: https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Cases.aspx (now available at zip code-level data)
Lancaster Stats: 2,428 cases. 11,065 negative tests. 186 deaths. (According to DOH website- updated today at 12:00pm)
Daily Press Briefings:
- Gov Wolf summary:
  - Today we reached the one week mark of the first counties moving from the Red to the Yellow phase of our reopening process, and the second round of counties moved today bringing the total number of counties in Yellow to 37. Beginning at 12:01 am on Friday, May 22, 12 more counties will enter the Yellow phase. Those counties are Adams, Beaver, Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Wayne, and York. I cannot emphasize enough that you should continue to implement social distancing. This virus has not been eradicated from these counties and we are continuing to closely monitor new case counts. But if we see a continued decline in case counts, we can lift more restrictions and bring our lives closer to normal so it is in every single Pennsylvanian’s best interest to continue to take social distancing seriously.
  - If you live in one of the 18 counties that remain in the Red zone you may be feeling disappointed or frustrated. But remember, when we first started to take action in the Commonwealth, this virus was ravaging Italy and we kept hearing tragic story after tragic story. We didn’t want that to be our family, friends, or neighbors so we acted decisively- but time has worn us down. With each passing day it gets harder and harder to stay home- what makes fighting a pandemic even harder is that the disaster is not obvious like storms or floods. The danger is there and real.
  - The epidemiologists and the other staff at the Dept. of Health have dedicated their lives to tracking diseases. They are professionals trained to analyze not just the pathway of known viruses but opportunities for spread as well and I have based the movement of counties on their scientific and medical advice. It is not just about the number of known cases, although that undoubtedly helps us identify hotspots, it’s also about how the people in our communities move about and interact. It’s about the amount of close quarters and shared touchpoints. It’s about the likelihood that one case will become 100 cases. We all want our communities to succeed but we are not all trained to see the nature of a pandemic.
  - As the leader of this Commonwealth, I am responsible for the health and safety of all Pennsylvanians and I cannot and will not let this virus ravage our communities. So I have to take seriously the advice of scientists and medical professionals, and that includes information laid out in the Carnegie Mellon University Risk-Based Decisions Support Tool Report. We plan to release this Report publicly, twice a week, to help Pennsylvanians understand the risk factors where they live.
  - I understand all residents are eager to get back to regular business operations and I am lifting restrictions, and will continue to do so, as quickly as I think it’s safe. But continued cooperation, a united front against this virus is going to allow us all to reduce those risk factors. Instead of being frustrated about being in a Red phase county, consider this, we have saved lives by what we have done. Through our social distancing efforts we have not only reversed a trajectory of exponential new case growth, we have now cut it in half, and some of the counties moving into the Yellow phase next week eliminated concerns that we had just two weeks ago.
  - Please keep up your efforts in the fight so we can keep moving more counties into the Yellow phase. Thank you again for your patience and your hard work.
- Secretary Levine summary:
  - As of 12am this morning, 986 new cases bringing statewide total to 60,622 in all 67 counties. This includes 4,349 positive cases in healthcare workers and 12,937 positives cases among residents of 550 long-term care living facilities. Includes 2,369 positive cases in the food industry and 150 facilities. Tragically 4,342 deaths- all have been adults.
  - As the Governor indicated, across the state the rate of infection has been declining over the last 14 days. That is good news for PA as we continue to move forward to a carefully coordinated phased opening. Regionally, case counts are trending downwards over the past 14 days but we are still seeing pockets of outbreaks that are of concern. The good news is that the current load of COVID has peaked in PA, however some areas of the state have only just begun to experience meaningful declines.
  - However, while we are on the decline, now is not the time to stop our efforts. These efforts will help us prevent a resurgence of the virus and will help us keep moving in the right direction. Testing continues to increase statewide with nearly 120,000 tests performed from April 30- yesterday at labs reporting results. So far in the counties that have gone from Red to Yellow, we are altogether successfully managing testing, contact-tracing, case investigations, and outbreak responses. It is important to remember that as counties move from Red to Yellow, that we still need to be careful. Yellow means caution. Parts of the country that have moved with a more aggressive approach have actually seen a rise in cases. We are keeping a careful eye on other countries whose outbreaks have subsided to see if they return and some of them have had increased number of cases.
  - It seems hard to imagine that it has been just over 2 months since PA announced it’s first cases of COVID-19. As we open areas of the state, the department will continue to do all we can to monitor any resurgence of this virus in PA.

National News:

Washington Post:

The Latest

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans traveled to work in recent weeks, a Washington Post-Ipsos poll found — and most of them are worried about the virus following them home. More than one-third of those going to work said they or someone in their household had a serious chronic illness, and roughly the same amount said they had probably been exposed to COVID-19 on the job. And as with so many other effects of the pandemic, the stress is falling unequally on nonwhites. “Like gambling with dice,” a 58-year-old prison worker in Virginia said in our story on the poll.
And yet, more and more Americans are going back to work — often under widely disparate rules as governors unilaterally roll back quarantine measures. States don't even agree on what temperature constitutes a fever. A worker sent home with a 99.5-degree temperature in Delaware would be allowed to work in Texas, Georgia, Ohio or Pennsylvania, The Post reported.
The federal government has offered little guidance. After weeks of delay, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued a scant six pages of recommendations to guide schools and businesses on when and whether to reopen after the White House declined to publish much more detailed CDC recommendations prepared last month. It is the latest sign of the increasing tension between the White House and the world-renowned public health agency.
A new study suggests that lifting quarantines quickly could lead to a huge viral surge. Researchers from several American universities looked at about 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases in March and April, and estimated that areas without shelter-in-place orders had potentially 10 times more virus spread — or 35 times more in areas with no social distancing guidelines at all.
Ever wondered how researchers predict how the virus will spread over time? We have a new tool that lets you play epidemiologist and make your own models to understand how the pros do it.
So far, COVID-19 appears to be a disease of the relatively rich, spreading predominantly in developed countries such as the United States. But experts think the pandemic's chaos will devastate the world's poor, even if the virus spares them. The World Food program estimates the number of people facing acute hunger will double this year to 265 million. A U.N. study says more than a half billion people could become impoverished. And already, nearly half the global workforce has lost their jobs.

Other important news:

Retail sales plunged 16.4 percent as the U.S. economy shut down in April, with clothing stores facing especially devastating losses.
The pandemic could permanently change urban life, as small businesses in high-rent cities such as Washington are wiped out.
House Democrats moved toward passage of a $3 trillion tax cut and spending bill Friday, but the White House and Republicans promised to block it. The chamber is also poised to adopt historic changes that would allow remote voting during the pandemic.
President Trump announced Friday that an Army general and the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline will lead his Operation Warp Speed program to manufacture a vaccine for the virus by January — a timeline many experts doubt is possible.
The Post's Fact Checker broke down four coronavirus-themed ads from Trump's and Joe Biden's presidential campaigns.

Senior Survey

Please help distribute a county-wide senior risk assessment survey created in coordination with Lancaster County Office of Aging, Age Friendly Lancaster City, the Meals on Wheels Network, and United Way of Lancaster County. Paper copies are attached or the online version is found below. Urgency is important but information will be looked at on rolling basis. We hope to have a strong push over the next two weeks:
Spanish version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UWSSS0520
English version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UWSS0520

Recurring Resources:

OneUnitedLancaster.com
- United Way of Lancaster County has launched a new website, OneUnitedLancaster.com. This digital source of information for our community works in tandem with United Way's 2-1-1 resources to connect people and resources during this time of upheaval.
- The Asset Map is a county-wide resource for all to utilize. If you need to add/update/delete information please follow the link here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UWMAP20

Lancaster Chamber:
- Website updated daily: https://www.lancasterchamber.com/Apps/Pages/coronavirusnews
- Past webinars are listed on the Chamber’s site listed above!
  - Work Wisdom Series: Authentic Communication In The Remote Era [Virtual Event]
    WHEN: Wednesday, May 27
    Authentic Communication is the make or break factor for leaders, teams and organizations during the remote era. During this interactive workshop, Kedren and Sarah will teach three remote communication techniques to enable you and your teams to practice Authentic Communication to foster efficiency, psychological safety and joy. Join us to learn how to mitigate zoom exhaustion, select the proper medium for communicating, and techniques for co-creating clear, realistic expectations.
    REGISTER NOW
- Payroll Protection Program (PPP) Update
  - This week, the Small Business Administration released an updated FAQ fact sheet on the Payroll Protection Program (HERE) that provided some additional insights and guidance – so we wanted to try to provide some quick insights from that.
    Currently, there is still about $120 billion in PPP money available. While some businesses may have felt discouraged about the program and everyone’s personal situation is different, some businesses may find that it is still worth applying for a PPP loan today with a bank, credit union, CDFI or other non-bank lender who is still open to applications from new and exiting customers.
    Guidance this week clarified that businesses with a PPP loan under $2 million now automatically fit the SBA forgiveness criteria with respect to financial hardship. For those, you no longer have to prove that COVID-19 had a negative impact on you business, as the assumption is any small business has suffered. This doesn’t change other requirements of the program such as tracking how much went to qualifying expenses like payroll and rent, but proving financial hardship is no longer one of them. According to the guidelines, “Any borrower that, together with its affiliates, received PPP loans with an original principal amount of less than $2 million will be deemed to have made the required certification concerning the necessity of the loan request in good faith.” Please reference question #46 in the FAQ for more insight and check in with your accountant or other advisors to further understand what this means for your business.
    There are considerations businesses should give thought to regarding PPP (forgiveness, timing of funds, lack of clarity, etc.), but you can learn more on the SBA website, by checking in with your bank or accountant, or by checking resources in section 2 of our website.

- Letter from the Chamber about the “reopening” of Lancaster ahead of the Governor’s orders: https://www.lancasterchamber.com/Apps/Pages/page-slug-92504?formEntryId=20521

Local Govt.:
- Mayor Danene Sorace is hosting daily briefings on Facebook every night at 5pm
- The County has a COVID site to keep up to date with their response: https://co.lancaster.pa.us/1296/Coronavirus-Disease-COVID-19

Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health:
- Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health COVID-19 Data: online dashboard with COVID-19 testing and patient data. The site is accessible from the LGHealth.org homepage (click “data” in the top red banner), or at the link below. Data is updated each morning.
  - https://www.lancastergeneralhealth.org/news/covid-19-data-for-lg-health