Your daily coronavirus update: Pennsylvania extends statewide stay-at-home order to June 4

Residents of nursing homes and personal care homes account for nearly 70% of the overall death toll.

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The coronavirus death toll grew Thursday by more than 300 as Gov. Tom Wolf ordered most Pennsylvania residents to stay at home until June 4, extending a statewide edict he first imposed April 1 to slow the spread of the new virus.

The revised stay-at-home order, issued late Thursday to replace one that was set to expire at midnight, applies to all counties that remain under Wolf’s strictest lockdown orders — meaning that for now, millions of people face the prospect of at least another month at home.

At the same time, the governor is planning to allow more counties with relatively few virus infections to emerge from some pandemic restrictions. He said he will reveal the names of those counties on Friday. They will join 24 counties in the lightly populated and mostly rural north where Wolf has already lifted his stay-at-home orders and allowed retailers and many other kinds of businesses to reopen beginning Friday morning.

Republicans have accused Wolf of moving too slowly to reopen Pennsylvania’s battered and largely shuttered economy.

Earlier Thursday, Wolf extended a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions by another two months, until July 10, saying residents shouldn’t have to worry about losing their homes during the pandemic.

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In other coronavirus-related developments:

Cases

The Pennsylvania Department of Health said Thursday that 310 more people with COVID-19 have died, raising the statewide death toll to 3,416.

The deaths took place over the last several weeks. The Health Department has been reconciling its records with data provided by hospitals, health care systems, county and municipal health departments and long-term care facilities.

Residents of nursing homes and personal care homes account for nearly 70% of the overall death toll.

Health officials reported 1,070 additional people have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, the first time new infections have topped 1,000 since Saturday. To date, the virus has been confirmed in about 53,000 people in Pennsylvania.

In central Pennsylvania counties, a total of 9,491 people have tested positive or are presumed to have had the virus since the first cases were reported in the region on March 13. Of those who tested positive, 473 died from COVID-19.

Today’s update includes 20 newly reported deaths in Berks County, 16 in Lancaster, five in Columbia, five in Cumberland, four in Dauphin, two in Franklin, two in York, one in Juniata, one in Lebanon and one in Schuylkill.

• Adams: 151 cases, including 5 deaths
• Berks: 3095 cases, including 168 deaths
• Columbia: 306 cases, including 21 deaths
• Cumberland: 403 cases, including 31 deaths
• Dauphin: 735 cases, including 33 deaths
• Franklin: 425 cases, including 11 deaths
• Juniata: 92 cases, including 1 death
• Lancaster: 2070 cases, including 161 deaths
• Lebanon: 785 cases, including 16 deaths
• Mifflin: 48 cases
• Northumberland: 112 cases
• Perry: 34 cases, including 1 death
• Schuylkill: 422 cases, including 10 deaths
• Snyder: 33 cases, including 1 death
• Union: 40 cases, including 1 death
• York: 740 cases, including 13 deaths

The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick. There is no data on how many people have recovered.

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.

Eviction moratorium extension

Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a fellow Democrat, jointly announced the eviction moratorium, saying it advances public health efforts to quell the virus outbreak by allowing people to stay at home.

“No one should have to worry about losing their home during this health emergency,” Wolf said at a video news conference. “This executive order takes one more burden off people who are struggling and gives them more time to get back on their feet.”

A board member of one of the state’s largest landlord groups blasted the extended moratorium, saying it gives tenants the ability to live rent-free without consequence for many months.

Robert Levin of HAPCO Philadelphia, which represents 2,000 property owners in the city, said mom-and-pop operators will be hard pressed to keep up with taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and mortgage payments without the ability to enforce lease agreements.

“These people are going to lose their properties, they’re going to lose their nest eggs, they’re going to lose their investments,” he said.

Wolf noted that renters and homeowners are still required to make monthly payments. But he called on landlords to work with tenants through the crisis.

“If you’re a landlord, we understand you’re going through a tough time, too, but so are your tenants,” Wolf said. “Practice forbearance here. That’s the decent, human thing to do.”

Rachel Garland, managing attorney for the housing unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, said some renters haven’t gotten their unemployment money yet.

“Many tenants were worried: ”What if I haven’t gotten unemployment?’ Once you get an eviction filed against you, that is a mark on your record and that makes it difficult to get quality housing in the future,” she said. “It’s helpful to have the extra buffer in terms of time without worrying about people getting taken to court.”

 

Backdated unemployment claims

Self-employed people, gig workers and others not normally eligible for unemployment compensation were able to start filing backdated claims Thursday under a new federal benefits program being administered by the state of Pennsylvania.

Since March 15, more than 174,000 people have applied to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which is being administered by the state’s unemployment compensation office. The state began accepting applications April 18 but wasn’t able to pay benefits while it built out the system.

Work on the system was completed Thursday morning, and it is now fully operational, the Department of Labor & Industry said. Eligible workers should receive their initial payments within a week of filing their claims.

A record 1.7 million Pennsylvanians have filed for regular unemployment compensation since mid-March as the pandemic, and the state’s efforts to contain it, caused economic devastation.

York County Food Bank to distribute food in Glen Rock

The York County Food Bank will holding a drive-through food distribution event in Glen Rock this Saturday from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at Susquehannock High School.

Anyone struggling to buy groceries may attend the distribution. Households will receive a free emergency food box containing shelf-stable food, meat, produce and dairy items. The boxes will include enough food to feed a family of four for about four or five days.

For health and safety reasons, the food bank requests only one person per household comes to the distribution, and that drivers clean out their trunks so volunteers can easily load food into vehicles.

Patient First opens drive-up COVID-19 testing

Patient First has begun to offer COVID-19 testing by appointment at its location along Jonestown Road in Harrisburg. Patients can arrange an appointment by calling the site for a preliminary screening. They will be asked about symptoms and risk factors to determine whether they meet testing criteria.

For most insured patients, there will be no out-of-pocket expense for COVID-19 testing. For self-pay patients, the cost for a test is $90, and there may also be a separate bill from the lab. The lab will determine what, if anything, it bills the patient.

Patient First centers in Bethlehem, East Norriton and Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, also offer COVID-19 testing.

Meat plant worker death lawsuit

The family of a meat processing plant worker who died of COVID-19 has sued the company and several affiliates, saying his death was the result of negligence in responding to the epidemic.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed in Philadelphia on Thursday concerns Enock Benjamin, who was a union shop steward at the JBS beef processing plant in Souderton, the largest facility of its kind east of Chicago.

It says he died of respiratory failure related to COVID-19 on April 3.

The lawsuit claims JBS was slow to provide personal protective equipment or to arrange its more than 1,000 workers far enough apart to avoid contagion.

Messages seeking comment were left at the plant and with a JBS spokesman.