COVID-19 mask resisters put school reopening in jeopardy

People who resist Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 orders, including a requirement to wear face masks in public, are jeopardizing the reopening of public schools in six weeks, the state health secretary said Thursday.
Health Secretary Rachel Levine said bar owners who are selling such things as chips as meals to stay open affect what may happen with the virus in the weeks to come.
“If you’re skirting the rules, you’re not protecting public health,” Levine said during an afternoon briefing on the disease.
Every county in Pennsylvania has experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases over the past seven days, with those in Southwestern Pennsylvania having the highest positive test percentage rate, Levine said.
The spike in cases prompted Gov. Tom Wolf and Levine last week to order bars to close and lower occupancy rates for restaurants.
Levine said its nearly impossible to enforce the mask-wearing order.
“We want to work with people’s hearts and minds to do the right thing for the commonwealth,” she said.
Levine said the state was still working on the goal to reopen public schools for the next term.
A day earlier, Deborah Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, identified Pittsburgh as one of 11 cities in the nation that need to take aggressive action to slow the spread of the virus, Levine said.
She said the mitigation steps Birx suggested are already in place in Pittsburgh.
Allegheny on Thursday reported two new deaths from the virus and 147 additional positive test results.
Washington County added 10 new cases Thursday to its total that rose to 613.
Greene County has had 93 positive test results after two new ones were added Thursday. There also has been an outbreak of COVID-19 at SCI-Greene in Franklin Township. Eleven employees there have tested positive for the virus, four of whom have recovered. Eleven other staff testing results were pending, according to statistics from the state Department of Corrections.
Meanwhile, Fayette County added six new virus cases to its total of 294. SCI-Fayette in Luzerne Township has had 10 staff members test positive for the virus, six of whom have recovered. The prison has four employees who were waiting for the results of their COVID-19 tests.