A bicameral group of Bucks County legislators submitted a letter in support of the Bucks County Commissioners’ bipartisan effort to ask Gov. Tom Wolf and Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Rachel Levine to consider nursing home cases of COVID-19 separate when weighing whether to reopen Bucks County.
Bucks County is experiencing a high percentage of deaths and hospitalizations attributable to COVID-19 associated with occupants of long-term care facilities. Bucks County Department to Health Director Dr. David Damsker has repeatedly reported very little community spread in Bucks County.
After consultation with the County Commissioners, the group of legislators wanted to support the commissioners in requesting the governor and Levine consider changing the metric being used to calculate the safe transition between the phases of recovery.
After Damsker and all three County Commissioners believed this course correction would benefit the community, the group of legislators felt it important to stand with them.
In a letter signed by eight members of the House and Senate representing Bucks County, the contingent wrote: “With the acknowledgement that we have very little community spread and a significant amount of our cases are from long-term facilities, we hope that the state Department of Health could work with our county Health Department to determine when Bucks County can safely phase in reopening.”
Signing the letter were Sen. Bob Mensch, Sen. Robert “Tommy” Tomlinson, Rep. Frank Farry, Rep. Todd Polinchock, Rep. Meghan Schroeder, Rep. Craig Staats, Rep. Wendi Thomas and Rep. Kathleen “K.C.” Tomlinson.
