Green Phase 'Getting Close' In Montgomery County, Officials Say

NORRISTOWN, PA — Montgomery County is primed to move into the green phase of coronavirus mitigation if current metrics continue to hold over the next week or so, authorities said on Monday.

Montgomery County Commissioners did not provide an exact date for when that would be during a news conference. Last week they estimated early July, but comments Monday indicated that it could be sooner.

"Our goal has been a responsible reopen," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said. "All of this hard work is paying off, as we are seeing our cases slowly and steadily decreasing. So if these metrics continue to hold through this week, we believe that getting to the green phase is getting close."

Neighboring Bucks County will likely move into the green phase on June 26, provided there isn't a spike in new coronavirus cases between now and then, lawmakers and local officials said in recent days. Montgomery County moved alongside Bucks into the yellow phase on June 5.

Montgomery County is meeting all four metrics a state Department of Health chart showing requirements to move the plan's next stage. The Montgomery County Community College testing site's positive rate remains at 14 percent positive overall for 45 days of testing. However, over the last 14 days, it's slowly but steadily dropped down to 12.9 percent, and state statistics indicate the county's overall rate is below the required 10 percent.

On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced eight more counties have been designated for the green phase on June 19. Those counties are Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Luzerne, Monroe, Perry, Pike, and Schuylkill.

The average number of cases over the last 14 days in the county is down to 58. It sat at 80 on June 2. The number of hospitalized individuals in the county is down to 95, though 24 do still require the use of a ventilator, officials said.

"We cannot forget that even though the numbers are down, individuals that are hospitalized are frequently quite seriously ill," Arkoosh said.

As of Monday, 777 Montgomery County residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 have died, out of 7,847 total cases in the county. A total of 84 percent of the county's deaths have been in nursing homes.