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COVID-19

School mask mandate to remain

HARRISBURG — An order requiring masks inside Pennsylvania’s K-12 schools and child care facilities will remain in place while the state Supreme Court considers the governor’s appeal of a lawsuit that overturned the mandate, the high court ruled Tuesday. The justices in a 5-1 decision put on hold a lower-court order that said the mask mandate would not remain in place as litigation over it continued. If the justices hadn’t acted, the mask mandate would have ended on Saturday. The high court said its decision was not the last word and may be reconsidered after it hears oral ...

Districts ‘tired of being stuck in the middle’

As much as Thomas McInroy, Bellwood-Antis superintendent, doesn’t like masking being an on-again, off-again issue, he believes that masks should stay on until the state Supreme Court makes a definitive decision on the Wolf administration’s mask mandate. The state’s top court Tuesday stayed a lower court decision that would have lifted the mask mandate as Saturday while the Supreme Court hears an appeal. McInroy said, “The district can’t pick and choose which laws they can and can’t follow. … We don’t have to like it, we just have to do it.” He stated that he and ...

COVID rates remain high

Again this week, the COVID-19 transmission rate remained high in all six local counties, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose statistics were last updated Wednesday. Among the local counties, Blair had the highest number of new cases, the highest incidence rate — or number of new cases per 100,000 residents — and the highest number of new hospital admissions, along with the second highest test positivity. The new case numbers and positivity rate are slightly higher this week in Blair, the incidence rate is modestly higher and hospital admissions ...

DoorDash lends know-how to struggling food banks

Susan Goodell needed help. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Goodell, CEO of the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank, would look out the window at the long line of clients picking up the food available that day, while she and others answered calls from others who couldn’t travel to a distribution point. “We were getting just horrible phone calls from our seniors, from people with disabilities, people who were COVID-positive and couldn’t leave their homes to get food,” Goodell said. “We were distributing food here at the site and other sites from about 6 a.m. till ...

Families tested by Thanksgiving amid pandemic

Back in the spring, Pauline Criel and her cousins talked about reuniting for Thanksgiving at her home near Detroit after many painful months of seclusion because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the virus had a different plan. Michigan is now the nation’s hot spot. Hospitals there are teeming with patients, and schools are scaling back in-person learning. A resurgent virus has pushed new infections in the U.S. to 95,000 daily, hospitals in Minnesota, Colorado and Arizona are also under pressure, and health officials are pleading with unvaccinated people not to travel. Criel’s big ...

Nason honors COVID victims

ROARING SPRING — Durbin Dixon paid an emotional tribute to his late wife, Joann, during a luminary service held in remembrance of local COVID-19 victims at Conemaugh Nason Medical Center Tuesday afternoon. Joann, 78, died late last year from COVID-19. She and Durbin were married for 54 ...