{"id":26661,"date":"2020-03-25T09:06:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T13:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=26661"},"modified":"2020-03-25T09:06:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T13:06:37","slug":"wolf-flawed-but-ok-on-covid-19-but-doh-dropping-the-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=26661","title":{"rendered":"Wolf flawed but OK on COVID-19, but DOH dropping the ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I don\u2019t want to nitpick, but\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Look, let\u2019s be clear: Gov. Tom Wolf has done a solid job in reacting to COVID-19 crisis. Compared to knuckleheads like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, he\u2019s been brilliant. Compared to President Donald Trump\u2026.well, he\u2019s a super genius.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, admittedly, that\u2019s been kind of a low bar. Compare Wolf to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and he comes up a bit short.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll get to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which has performed poorly and offered what seems to be bad advice to the governor, in a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Focusing on matters directly on Wolf\u2019s desk:<\/span><\/p>\n

He needs to watch his language.<\/span><\/p>\n

Monday he said: \u201cStarting at 8pm, residents must stay home unless someone\u2019s life depends on leaving.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, that sounds like house arrest unless you need to go to the hospital. No food shopping, no going to pharmacy for essential medicines, no going outside for a walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t the rule. You can shop for food as needed. You can go to the pharmacy. And yes, you can go out for a walk or a run, if you maintain proper social distancing.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you look at social media, you see people panicked that they cannot go out \u2014 they cannot feed their families \u2014 and this was a giant unforced error, especially when the people of Pennsylvania are more than slightly scared.<\/span><\/p>\n

If this is the best the governor\u2019s comm shop can do, maybe they need to find a better line of work. This needs to be clarified immediately and repeatedly \u2014 something I noticed legislators doing immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, six days ago, Cuomo issued an executive order creating a 90-day pause on mortgage payments for the residents of his state, along with other orders related to credit. Where\u2019s Wolf on this? So far, near as I can tell, nothing has been done. Such an order, combined with a rent holiday, would offer a lot of relief to families worried about getting buried in debt. This needs to happen immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last, in terms of Wolf\u2019s direct actions, closing the state liquor stores was a mistake. Reopening them will create a crisis \u2014 crowds, lines and such at a time when social distancing is an issue \u2014 but someone needs to come up with a plan. One option: mail order, using drivers\u2019 license numbers (imperfect for those without drivers licenses, granted) and an email confirmation to prevent purchases by minors). Another option: in person appointments, allowing 5 to 7 people in the store at once. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other states have allowed liquor stores to remain open \u2014 some people need (I\u2019m fine with a beer, BTW, so this isn\u2019t for me) \u2014 as an option for people to calm their nerves. Not everyone wants to drink beer or wine, something should be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

While many have praised Secretary of Health Rachel Levine and the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH), I think she\u2019s failed too often during this crisis and made poor decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m seeing decisions to limit testing to first responders, health care workers and those hospitalized. I get the massive, massive failure of the Trump Administration to plan and make sure the nearly 1 billion tests were ready \u2014 but we need to test almost everyone, or we will never get our hands around the spread. Without data, we\u2019re guessing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania has done a fraction of the tests other states have \u2014 New York has three times more positive results than Pennsylvania has even tested. Chester County has tested less than 700 people out of something like 550,000. And tests seem to be coming back very slowly, multiple days instead of hours or minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, I get that the main issue is the criminal incompetence of Donald Trump, but other states seem to be finding ways to test more \u2014 New York tested more than 12,000 people on Monday, more than 91,000 overall \u2014 and Levine should be telling Wolf this is the highest priority. But she\u2019s not. Cuomo has also been much more aggressive in chasing ventilators and personal protective equipment than Wolf and his administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear: New York is about a week ahead of us. It is going to get a lot worse here \u2014 and maybe worse than New York because our state government is behind the curve.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the state can\u2019t even accurately report positives \u2014 they overreport the number of positive tests in Chester County every single day because it cannot seem to figure out where Chester County starts and Delaware County ends. If we can\u2019t trust the numbers coming out of PADOH, can we trust any information coming out of the department?<\/span><\/p>\n

Another illogical decision: in the middle of the night, without any consultation with the Pennsylvania Dental Association \u2014 DOH closed virtually all dental offices, requiring negative pressure isolation and HEPA\u00a0filtration in order to stay open.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virtually no offices \u2014 already restricted to emergencies \u2014 have that capability. In the order, DOH claimed that the standard is similar to that used in the state\u2019s dental schools, UPenn, Temple and Pitt. Slight problem: none of those schools have negative pressure isolation of HEPA filtration. Another case of DOH putting out incorrect information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, if you have such an emergency \u2014 if you\u2019re in pain \u2014 you have the choice of going to a hospital (which will likely be very much more expensive if they’ll even see you), get a prescription for pain meds (with the ongoing opioid crisis, maybe not the best choice) or suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like dentists were making money staying open \u2014 most were losing money by offering nothing more than emergency service and had broken out their Personal Protective Equipment and limited work to that advised by the American Dental Association to keep them, patients and staffs safe. They\u2019re frustrated by being unable to help their patients in a time of national crisis because of a boneheaded decision in Harrisburg.<\/span><\/p>\n

Worse, though, it could add a burden on hospitals, clogging them with dental patients at a time when every effort should be made to clear these facilities to deal with COVID-19 patients. I haven’t found another state doing this \u2014 New York and California, the state\u2019s with the biggest crisis right now, are limiting office visits to true emergencies, which had been the standard in Pennsylvania until the middle of the night, Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Wolf has generally done a good job, his DOH continues to fail us. In the end, that falls on him. He needs to make changes, now, to keep us all safe and restore confidence in our state government.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times I don\u2019t want to nitpick, but\u2026 Look, let\u2019s be clear: Gov. Tom Wolf has done a solid job in reacting to COVID-19 crisis. Compared to knuckleheads like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, he\u2019s been brilliant. Compared to President Donald Trump\u2026.well, he\u2019s a super genius. But, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[20,9618,9585,9615,3113,9635,4515,3912,3616,9636,1677],"class_list":["post-26661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-chester-county","tag-closures","tag-covid-19","tag-crisis","tag-dentists","tag-department-of-health","tag-donald-trump","tag-featured","tag-gov-tom-wolf","tag-liquor-stores","tag-pennsylvania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26662,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26661\/revisions\/26662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}