Apr 13, 2020 3 min read

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf joined governors from five other states Monday in calling for a task force to form a science-based approach to reopening the economy that has been significantly harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group will include economic development and health care experts who will be tasked with coming up with a plan for the slow reopening of nonessential businesses in such a way to prevent a second wave of coronavirus cases in the six states.

“We need to do this right,” Wolf said during an afternoon teleconference with the media, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democratic governors from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey.

“We want to restore a sense of hope that this pandemic has taken away from so many of us,” Wolf said.

Pennsylvania reached a milestone over the weekend when its health Secretary Rachel Levine said such mitigation efforts as staying home and the closings schools and businesses have helped to flatten the curve in the state.

While the number of positive cases and deaths from COVID-19 continued to increase across Pennsylvania Monday, the number of those who have the virus has not doubled every two days, as was the case two weeks ago.

There were 17 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, and 1,366 more cases of the disease statewide.

“COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise in Pennsylvania, and even though the daily increases are not exponential, now is not the time to become complacent,” Levine said.

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman praised residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania on Twitter for staying home, stating mitigation efforts have helped to keep 70% of the supply of ventilators on hand.

“Your commitment to kill this virus is paying off,” Fetterman tweeted.

A Donora man died Friday from COVID-19, becoming the first death from the virus in Washington County. The county also added one new positive case of the virus Monday, taking its total to 69. Greene County remained at 23 positive cases, state records show. Westmoreland County’s cases increased by five, taking its total number to 228.

Meanwhile, two more people died from COVID-19 in Allegheny County, taking that county’s death toll to 21. There were 876 positive cases of the virus in Allegheny, up 19 from the previous day.

The number of positive cases stood Monday at 24,199 statewide.

Pennsylvania also announced the first death from the virus in a state prison, an inmate at SCI-Phoenix in Montgomery County, one the state’s hotspots.

Cuomo said officials in New York believe his state have reached a plateau in the number of new cases.

“That is relatively good news,” Cuomo said.

He said the six states want to make sure they put science above politics in developing the plan.

“No one has ever done this before. It has to be informed by experts,” Cuomo said.

The announcement came not long after President Donald Trump said he would be the one to decide to reopen the U.S. economy, not governors.

When asked if the task force was a reaction to the president’s comments, Wolf said it was the governors’ responsibility to “figure out a way back.

“We had the responsibility to close down, we probably have the responsibility to reopen,” Wolf said.