Reopening businesses during COVID-19 pandemic will come with rules
Life will not return to normal during the COVID-19 pandemic after Pennsylvania begins to reopen nonessential businesses in certain regions next week, Gov. Tom Wolf said.
Employees and customers will be required to wear masks and practice social distancing when curbside deliveries are not an option for them, state health Secretary Rachel Levine said.
“You owe it to yourself and your family to stay safe,” Wolf said during a Thursday morning teleconference with members of the media.
Wolf’s color-coded reopening plan will move some regions and counties out of the red zone and into yellow zones May 8 using data from various sources while relying on more COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.
Wolf declined to say Thursday whether or not Southwestern Pennsylvania will move to a yellow zone, or discuss the list of businesses that would reopen if that happened.
“We haven’t made up a list yet,” Wolf said. “We don’t have any one region in mind.”
Gov. Jim Justice in neighboring West Virginia announced Thursday that on Monday he would change his stay-home order to a “safer at home” plan and allow people to return to work. He urged residents there to continue to stay at home as much as possible, The Intelligencer in Wheeling reported.
Pennsylvania will still require restaurants to only serve to-go food, and large gatherings at movie theaters and concerts will still be prohibited in yellow zones, Levine said.
Levine said people will still need to stay home as much as possible to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading.
The mitigation efforts in yellow zones will only work if people “decide they want to make it work,” Wolf said.
“Practice social distancing and wear masks so you’re not going to bring something back to your family, your neighbors. This is going to be in place for the unforeseeable future,” Wolf said.
Pennsylvania announced 1,397 new cases of the novel coronavirus Thursday, taking the total to 45,763. To date, the virus has killed 2,292 adults in the state.
Washington County, where two people have died from COVID-19, added two cases, taking its total to 115. Greene County’s total stood at 26.
Meanwhile, the Washington County Chamber of Commerce sent Wolf a letter Thursday urging him to reopen the county’s economy “as soon as safely possible.
“Our businesses are eager to reopen, our residents are ready to work, and our citizens are looking forward to engaging in the community safely and with social distancing protections in place,” chamber officials stated in the letter.