Montgomery County Officials Announce Likely Date For Green Phase

UPDATE: Southeastern PA Counties Moving To Green Phase On June 26

NORRISTOWN, PA — Montgomery County officials said Thursday that they believe the county will be moved into the green phase of coronavirus mitigation, the least restrictive phase, on June 26.

"I anticipate that tomorrow afternoon the governor will announce new counties that will be going to green the following Friday," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said on Thursday. "And I do anticipate that Montgomery County will be on that list."

Bucks County officials have also stated that they plan to move into green on June 26.

Authorities in Philadelphia, however, said this week that the earliest the city would go green is July 3. Arkoosh said it was an important consideration, but would not slow down Montgomery County's plans.

"It certainly is a concern, given the number of people that travel back and forth between Philadelphia and Montgomery County for their work," Arkoosh said. "It won't impact Montgomery County going to green at this point. Our numbers are in a really solid place. We have contact tracing very much up and running. We have capacity in our hospitals. I'm comfortable with Montgomery County going to green in a week."

She added that while perhaps every county would not move to green at the same time, it was important for the region to have a "slow phase-in," especially in terms of people going back to work.

"Green is not go back to normal," she said. "Green is go forward to our new normal."

It's unclear if other local counties like Chester County, which also appears to be close, believe they will be in the green by June 26.

Montgomery County moved from the stay-at-home red phase of the shutdown plan to the less restrictive yellow phase two weeks ago on June 5, along with the rest of southeastern Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health's website, Montgomery County currently is meeting four out of four criteria to move to the next level of the plan.

The average daily number of cases over the last two weeks in the county continues to plummet, dropping Thursday to 45. That average sat at 75 as recently as June 5.

Montgomery County has 7,917 cases of coronavirus and 780 deaths as of Thursday.