COVID-19 Update: Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Coronavirus update for Wednesday, June 17 as of 4:00 p.m.

A Note About SNAP’s COVID-19 Updates

Beginning the week of June 15, SNAP will prepare COVID-19 updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with additional updates as needed on subjects that are especially timely or important. SNAP members and update subscribers will continue to receive their updates near the close of the business day and those updates will continue to be posted in this space the following morning.

Pennsylvania Update

The Courts

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed today to hear a lawsuit filed by Senate Republicans against Governor Wolf seeking to enforce a resolution adopted by the General Assembly last week requiring the governor to end the COVID-19 disaster emergency proclamation that he enacted in March and extended for another ninety days on June 1. The suit was originally filed in Commonwealth Court.

Department of Health

In communication circulated via message board but not posted on any department web site, the Department of Health explained the following:

The Department has received questions and is concerned that there are laboratories marketing their ability to run tests who are not certified in Pennsylvania.

Per the Order of the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health Directing Testing at Skilled Nursing Facilities, issued June 8, 2020, Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) are required to complete a baseline universal test for SARS-CoV-2 of all residents and staff no later than July 24, 2020. In order to be compliant with this Order, a facility needs to enter into a contract with a commercial laboratory to meet testing needs of the facility. A laboratory must have a current Pennsylvania laboratory permit and be approved to perform COVID-19 testing.

A list of laboratories that have a CLIA permit in Pennsylvania can be found here.

Department of Health – by the numbers

Case counts and death totals remain generally down and declining
788 Pennsylvanians are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, with 169 of them on ventilators.
40 percent of Pennsylvania hospitals’ acute-care beds are currently unoccupied, as are 39 percent of their ICU beds, 30 percent of their pediatric ICU beds, and 17 percent of their isolation rooms.