Here's What Must Happen For Montco To Reopen Amid Coronavirus

NORRISTOWN, PA -- Montgomery County officials released detailed information on Friday on what must happen in order for the county to begin to reopen, elaborating on the color-coded plan announced by Gov. Wolf earlier this week.

That three-phase reopening plan breaks down reopening into red, yellow, and green stages, with each color coordinating with different levels of mitigation measures.

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In order for Montgomery County to reach the final phase, where major mitigation measures are lifted, the total number of county cases must be down to an average of 30 per day, or a total of 415 new cases over a 14-day period.

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That's still a ways off in Montgomery County: the last 14 days have seen an average of 187 new cases per day, and a total of 2,612 cases overall.

The numbers were calculated from the state mandate that the rate of new cases drop to an average of 50 per day over 14 days per 100,000 residents.

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Furthermore, Montco's fate is tied, at least to some extent, to its neighboring counties that have been placed in the same reopening bloc, due to the amount of travel between counties. Those other counties are Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Philadelphia, and Schuylkill.

Ideally, all of these counties would meet that 50 per 100,000 standard before opening, but Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh expressed optimism that the state would be a little more adaptive.

"They might treat all of these counties together, they might allow some flexibility with in that," she said Friday afternoon, noting that in addition to the raw numbers, the state will also consider things like hospital capacity, contact tracing ability, and the availability of personal protective equipment when deciding if a single county may reopen.

Of course, Philadelphia and Montgomery County are the state's epicenter of the virus, and Gov. Wolf has himself said that he expects this southeastern bloc to be the last to part of the state to reopen.

Montgomery County announced 171 new cases and 10 new deaths from coronavirus on Friday, bringing the county's total caseload to 3,383, and total deaths to 189.

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