"If you have a friend or neighbor who needs this information in their native language, please share it," Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Friday. (Commonwealth Media Services)
Commonwealth Media Services
Legislators argue COVID-19 cases in nursing homes shouldn’t set reopening schedule
'Does this skew the data?'
-
Russ Walker
Commonwealth Media Services
"If you have a friend or neighbor who needs this information in their native language, please share it," Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Friday. (Commonwealth Media Services)
Good morning. Today is #GivingTuesdayNow, a one-day fundraising effort for nonprofits nationwide, including independent newsrooms like PA Post. We are asking for your help — our journalism depends on support from readers. The first $2,500 in gifts will be matched dollar for dollar. Go to support.papost.org to make your gift online. Meet some of our team in this video message. — Russ Walker, PA Post editor
Commonwealth Media Services
Dr. Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s health secretary, at a recent coronavirus press briefing held at the state’s Emergency Management Agency. (Commonwealth Media Services)
Numbers don’t lie. The latest coronavirus data released by the Pa. Department of Health showed just 825 new cases and 14 new deaths. The day before saw just 962 new cases and 26 deaths statewide.
The data is encouraging, as reflected by a few headlines. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette boasted: “For second straight day, no deaths reported in Allegheny County.” Across the state, CBS Philadelphia declared, “Third Straight Day City Sees Less Than 400 New COVID-19 Cases As No New Deaths Reported.”
So it’s hardly surprising that the pressure to reopen more of Pennsylvania is only increasing. Dr. Rachel Levine, Pa.’s health secretary, “was put in the hot seat on Monday” by state senators who are critical of the Wolf administration’s handling of the crisis, CBS Philadelphia reported.
The data point that came up during the virtual Senate hearing was the fact that most COVID-19 deaths in Pennsylvania have been among nursing home residents.
“The estimate is in Montgomery County that as much as 80% of the deaths are in nursing or long-care home facilities,” state Sen. Bob Mensch (R-Montgomery) said to Levine. “So I ask, does this skew the data?”
The point, Mensch and other lawmakers were making, is nursing homes are quarantined, meaning there’s a lower chance the virus can spread to the outside.
While agreeing that nursing home deaths account for two-thirds of all deaths in the state, Levine stuck to her guns in responding to the senators. Later, during the daily health department press conference, Levine was asked again about this point, specifically if it makes sense to mingle data from nursing homes with that of the general public.
Levine responded: “We are not going to separate nursing home cases from other cases in counties. What we have certainly learned in the global pandemic of COVID-19 is that we are all interconnected. One section of our community, such as a nursing home or personal care home, impacts the general community, and the community impacts that facility. The staff go back and forth, and so it really is an example of how we are all connected and it’s very important to include those type of facilities, among other congregate type facilities, in the total counts for a county.” (Hear for yourself at the 06:50 mark of this video; WGAL also covered the hearing, which was co-chaired by Lancaster’s Scott Martin.)
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed Monday seeks to force the Department of Health to perform adequate inspections of nursing homes, 6ABC Philadelphia reports. One of the plaintiffs is a woman whose elderly father is living at the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver County. “Every day I just hold my breath because I don’t know what’s going on. What we know– the number of deaths keep happening,” said plaintiff Jodi Gill.
Related: The Morning Call produced this interactive map of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes across the state, while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story headlined, Legislation would require state to inspect nursing homes for COVID-19, report findings.
Best of the rest
Smart Talk
FILE: Republican State Representative Cris Dush of Jefferson County appears on Smart Talk September 10, 2019. (WITF)
-
Godwin’s Law is an Internet-era observation that online arguments, the longer they go on, ultimately result in one party accusing the other of being a Nazi. Case in point from Monday: State Rep. Cris Dush (R-Jefferson) said the Wolf administration’s lack of transparency was straight out of the playbook of Nazi Germany or Stalin’s USSR. Dush’s comment prompted a sharp rebuke from state Rep. Kevin Boyle (D-Philadelphia). The details on the exchange was reported on by PennLive and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
-
The Wall Street Journal profiles an important health care job that many people would never have thought of: hospital air flow expert. Featured in the article is Jennifer Lohr, a Philly-area worker who helped build extra negative air pressure rooms where coronavirus patients could be treated: “Within a few weeks, she helped convert around 250 regular hospital rooms into negative airflow isolation rooms at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The work required removing ceiling tiles and peering up into the crawl space, reconfiguring duct work and figuring out how to best recirculate the air. Ms. Lohr was in charge of testing the airflow and ensuring the right pressure was in place to keep potentially contaminated air contained.” (Subscription required)
-
PA Post’s Emily Previti reports on Gov. Wolf’s Monday press conference at which he was expected to offer more details on how the state would support counties as they prepare for the June 2 primary. There was some speculation that Wolf might heed calls to force an all-mail vote. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the governor urged Pennsylvanians to apply for mail-in ballots. That means there’s likely to be extensive in-person voting next month as experts predict coronavirus will still be circulating. Already, counties say poll workers are saying they won’t work that day. Example from the Reading Eagle: Berks County needs poll workers after hundreds opt to stay home due to coronavirus concerns.
-
Emily wants to know: A couple voters reached out this week to let us know they requested mailed ballots and received the wrong one (for the wrong political party in one case and the wrong election district in the other). We’re wondering whether others have encountered the same issue. If so, please get in touch via our Listening Post.
-
On the voting topic, give a read to Emily Bazelon’s piece in The New York Times in which she argues states need to start planning now for mail-in voting this fall or risk disenfranchising voters. “To fundamentally change the way voting has been done in those states, they will have to move quickly to sign contracts with vendors and then order supplies, like specially certified paper for envelopes and ballots, high-speed scanners to count votes and secure drop-off boxes. If they wait, they’ll risk running into shortages like the ones that have troubled the country’s efforts to fight the virus,” she writes.
Coronavirus must-reads:
-
Politico: Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S. deaths as states relax social distancing
-
ProPublica: “Similar to Times of War”: The Staggering Toll of COVID-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers
-
Kaiser Health News: Viral Post Alleging Obama-Era Device Tax Caused Current PPE Shortage Is Way Off
-
GoErie.com: State backs Erie County in lawsuit over COVID-19 names
Levine on haters: They don’t mean it
During Monday’s press briefing, Health Secretary Rachel Levine was asked a very personal question from WKOK. The question: “Transphobic people have been making comments about your appearance throughout the pandemic. Do you have a message to those people?”
Levine’s response: “My message is that, as secretary of health, I am working with the governor’s office advising the governor as well as working with other agencies to the best I can in terms of helping Pennsylvania through this unprecedented global pandemic. I realize at times like this it’s very stressful. People sometimes say things that they wouldn’t otherwise say or mean, but really what I’m going to do is stay laser focused on helping Pennsylvania through this global pandemic, assisting the governor and the governor’s office.” Video (question comes around the 19:25 mark)
For more on Levine, see this Philadelphia Inquirer story from last month: Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary Rachel Levine fights hate, fear, and the coronavirus.
