May 6, 2020 3 min read

Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday announced the formation of a Civilian Coronavirus Corps in the fall to assist in recovery efforts as the number of new COVID-19 cases continued to decrease.

The corps, which has met with approval by legislative leadership, will create critical new jobs in the health sector and help guide the state in boosting testing and contact tracing efforts, Wolf said during an afternoon briefing.

“We want this to be a big deal,” Wolf said.

He said he hopes to get federal money to create the corps to “usher us all into this new world.”

Wolf said he wasn’t yet sure how many jobs the corps would create.

Pennsylvania added 888 new COVID-19 cases to its running total, which reached 51,845 on Wednesday.

Allegheny County experienced two new deaths, taking its total that day to 111. The county had 94 new cases of the virus, bringing its total to 1,394.

During a briefing held by phone, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgeraldcalled Wolf’s proposal for the new civilian corps a “really good idea.”

“You’re going to be putting some people to work, and putting them to work to help keep us healthy and keep those numbers where they are, so that our economy can open up again in a big way,” he said.

Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the county health department, said that from April 20 until Tuesday, her staff had opened investigations of 352 new cases of COVID-19 to shed light on how the virus is spreading. She said 14 percent were infections of health-care workers, including employees of long-term care faciltiies. Another 35 percent were residents of those facilities and 51 percent were neither.

“Since April 20, we’ve had 24 new cases reported at the county jail, and there were seven new cases reported among police, fire and EMS workers,” she said. “Among all of our new cases, 70 percent were linked to another known case, most either linked to a communal-living situation, or to a household member.”

Meanwhile, Washington County added one new case to its total of 121, and Greene County remained Wednesday at 27. The deaths in those counties stood at two and one, respectively.

State health Sec. Rachel Levine said there have been less than 1,000 new cases of the virus per day statewide in the past four days.

“We are seeing less cases of COVID-19,” Levine said, crediting the state’s stay-home order for helping the slow the community spread of the virus.

Wolf said the state is closing in on the two-month mark of its residents making sacrifices because of the disease.

“There is nothing more valuable than life, Wolf said. “We’re walking a tightrope between health and the economy.”