County officials say Allegheny County on track for reopening

Allegheny County data on cases of the coronavirus show that the county is on track to start reopening, but decisions about that timeline will be made at the state level, county officials said during a press briefing Wednesday.

“Our numbers are encouraging and look to be in line with what the state is looking for,” said Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department.

Gov. Tom Wolf last week announced a color-coded system for a phased reopening of the state by region. The entire state is currently in the red zone, with all the restrictions established in March still active. The first counties to be allowed to move into the yellow zone, which would allow some businesses to reopen with certain restrictions, are expected to be announced later this week.

A county must report 50 or fewer new cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day span in order to be considered for the yellow phase.

For the Allegheny County population of 1.3 million, that means the county must report fewer than 650 new, confirmed cases over a 14-day period.

From April 10 to April 23, the latest 14-day period for which the county has complete data, there have been 328 new, confirmed cases, and the infection rate has consistently been less than 10%, Bogen said.

“The good news is that both testing and our capacity to test have increased in our county, but we have to be prepared to do even more testing,” Bogen said. “We need tests that are accurate and give a quick turnaround so we can respond quickly.”

Hospitals, commercial laboratories and pharmacy locations across Allegheny County have the capacity to do at least 2,000 tests per day, Bogen said.

Daily testing levels are back up to about 400 to 500 people tested per day, bouncing back from a drop last week to about 300 to 400 people per day.

Bogen attributed that drop in daily testing to a delay in entering data into the reporting system. She expects testing to increase as the county reopens.

“It really is based on those numbers,” county Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “If we continue to keep our numbers of positive tests low, and the mitigation and everything that we’ve done to date, I think we’ll continue and probably see some more opening up over the next few weeks.”

Fitzgerald emphasized that physical distancing measures are still necessary and encouraged people who are going out to continue wearing masks. He said the county has received reports that some people are not wearing masks in the workplace or when coming in close contact with others.

He also encouraged residents to apply for a mail-in ballot for the June 2 primary.

So far, more than 114,000 people have applied for a mail-in ballot, and more than 72,000 applications have been processed.

Everyone who has not yet applied will receive an application in the mail in the next week, Fitzgerald said.

“We want as many people to vote by mail as we can because we want to keep people safe,” he said, adding that this will help to avoid long lines at the polls.