A pedestrian walks past a boarded up Wine and Spirits store in Philadelphia, Friday, March 20, 2020.
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
Updated: 2020-04-16 15:09:55
Your daily coronavirus update: Pennsylvania to use liquor stores for online fulfillment
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Matt Rourke / AP Photo
A pedestrian walks past a boarded up Wine and Spirits store in Philadelphia, Friday, March 20, 2020.
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» Day-by-day look at coronavirus disease cases in Pa.
» What the governor’s stay-at-home order means
(Harrisburg) — Workers will be back on the job at more than 100 shuttered state-owned liquor stores to help process online orders, Pennsylvania’s liquor agency said Thursday.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s office gave the OK to reopen 106 of the state system’s 600 stores for online fulfillment but not for public retail sales, a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board spokeswoman said.
The store closings have been a source of widespread complaints, especially since the state’s swamped online ordering system has been unable to meet customer demand in a state where the liquor board controls the overwhelming majority of retail sales of hard alcohol.
Employees have been getting called back, and stores are expected to open next week for workers.
The plan is to require enhanced sanitation and social distancing measures and to limit the number of employees per location, to help avoid transmission of the new coronavirus.
Wolf, a Democrat, closed the stores about a month ago.
Matt Smith / Keystone Crossroads
A boarded up Wine and Spirits store in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Wendell Young IV, president of Local 1776 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents about 3,500 of the store clerks, said the PLCB plan is designed to meet a crushing demand for online sales.
“Our goal is to begin opening those 106 early next week and throughout the week,” Young said Thursday. “It’s all going to depend on making sure the stores are ready first, and the staff is trained first.”
Before the COVID-19 crisis, online sales had been a small part of the state liquor system’s $2.7 billion in annual sales. The agency also sells much of the wine consumed in the state.
Through online fulfillment centers in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia suburbs, the agency was able to fill only about 9,600 orders worth $2.1 million from April 1-8.
Young said the liquor board has also been reconfiguring the 13 centers that it runs across Pennsylvania to fill orders for restaurants and other licensees. Those centers are not open to the public, but instead will be packaging online orders for delivery.
Young said “a couple” of those 13 so-called “warehouse stores” are now operating and rest will be restarted gradually.
Producers, breweries, wineries and distilleries, and privately owned beer distributorships, have been permitted to sell during the shutdown of nonessential businesses.
Cases
Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 60 to 707, the state health department reported Thursday, with more than 1,200 additional people testing positive for the new coronavirus.
Nursing homes have been hit especially hard. More than half of the state’s fatalities have occurred in more than 300 nursing and personal-care homes scattered throughout Pennsylvania, according to the Department of Health. Nearly 3,300 long-term care residents have contracted the virus.
Statewide, more than 27,700 people have tested positive, according to the latest health department statistics.
Since the first cases were reported in central Pennsylvania on March 13, a total of 4,312 people in the region have tested positive for the virus.
The first coronavirus-related deaths in this region were reported about two weeks later, on March 28. Since then, a total 91 central Pennsylvania residents have died from COVID-19 or related complications.
Today’s update includes four new deaths in Lancaster County, three in Berks, two in Dauphin and one in Schuylkill.
- Adams: 67 cases, including 1 death
- Berks: 1419 cases, including 31 deaths
- Columbia: 146 cases, including 3 deaths
- Cumberland: 137 cases, including 4 deaths
- Dauphin: 287 cases, including 7 deaths
- Franklin: 80 cases
- Juniata: 56 cases
- Lancaster: 970 cases, including 33 deaths
- Lebanon: 380 cases, including 2 deaths
- Mifflin: 15 cases
- Northumberland: 60 cases
- Perry: 17 cases, including 1 death
- Schuylkill: 236 cases, including 4 deaths
- Snyder: 24 cases, including 1 death
- Union: 25 cases
- York: 393 cases, including 4 deaths
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in a couple of weeks. Older adults and people with existing health problems are at higher risk of more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
Tim Lambert / WITF
A car passes by a sign at Penn State Health’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center on April 1, 2020.
Penn State joins international trial
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center is one of 75 sites worldwide to participate in an international clinical trial evaluating an antiviral drug for treatment of COVID-19. The midstate hospital’s research team has already begun enrolling participants and will be reaching out directly to eligible hospitalized patients.
The trial drug, remdesivir, has been previously tested in humans with Ebola and has shown some therapeutic benefit against SARS and MERS coronaviruses in animal tests.
Wolf warns of big budget deficit
Wolf has written to President Donald Trump to back calls from other governors for another $500 billion in federal aid for states fighting the spread of the coronavirus, warning that his office is projecting a budget deficit of up to $5 billion.
The letter, dated Wednesday, was issued with two other Democratic governors, Tony Evers of Wisconsin and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
Trump narrowly won all three states in 2016. All had long backed Democrats in presidential contests.
Russ Walker / PA Post
A sign hangs in the door of Madcap & Company, a novelty store in Lancaster, Pa.
In the letter, the governors acknowledged that the federal government is making an initial $71 billion available to meet some immediate cash flow needs of state and local governments.
But, they wrote, “the magnitude of the crushing economic impact this virus has had on our states and residents cannot be overstated.”
In Pennsylvania, Wolf said the projected deficit ranging between $4.5 billion and $5 billion will make it incredibly difficult to focus the state’s efforts to support workers and businesses as it attempts to rebuild its economy.
Over the weekend, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York issued a call for the additional $500 billion. Hogan is chairman of the National Governors Association and Cuomo is the vice chair.
Berks sounds alarm
A sharp rise in coronavirus cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals in Berks County, officials said Thursday.
Tower Health’s Reading Hospital and Penn State Health St. Joseph released a model that shows a looming shortage of regular hospital beds and ICU beds. Hospital officials said they are working to avoid that worst-case scenario by creating additional bed capacity, adding staff and procuring supplies.
The hospital executives took part in a news conference arranged by the Berks County commissioners.
Board chairman Christian Leinbach said virus cases are rising at a sharper rate in Berks than in neighboring counties. He chided Berks residents and businesses for failing to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
“The numbers are bleak in Berks County,” Leinbach said. “We are not doing well. Businesses and individuals are not doing enough of the basic things, like wearing a mask.”
More than 1,400 Berks County residents have tested positive for the virus, according to the state health department. Leinbach, citing data from the coroner’s office, said 52 have died.
Sometimes, your mornings are just too busy to catch the news beyond a headline or two. Don’t worry. The Morning Agenda has got your back. Each weekday morning, host Tim Lambert will keep you informed, amused, enlightened and up-to-date on what’s happening in central Pennsylvania and the rest of this great commonwealth.
