Emily Burwell, 16, isn’t a fan of remote learning, especially when it involves complex concepts best grasped with back-and-forth, in-person interaction with a teacher. Emily may have helped minimize the need for future remote learning Friday as one of four children who received COVID-19 ...
Friday’s update to the state Department of Health’s early warning dashboard for COVID-19 shows that conditions are improving in the region. The number of new cases this week, along with the incidence rate — the number of new cases per 100,000 residents — dropped in all six local counties; while the test positivity rate and the average daily hospitalization levels dropped in five of the six. The number of total new cases for this week dropped the most in Blair County, down 84 to 142. The average daily COVID-19 hospitalization count dropped in all the local counties except ...
HARRISBURG (AP) — Schools, businesses and other organizations in Pennsylvania may still require masks, even as the Wolf administration loosened its mask mandate to exempt people who are fully vaccinated, the state Department of Health said Friday. Pennsylvania adopted new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said fully vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks in most places. But the state is leaving the ultimate decision to businesses and schools. “If you are fully vaccinated, it is an incentive to be able to remove your mask, but businesses ...
WASHINGTON — Jill Biden says finally going mask-free feels like “we’re moving forward.” A Republican senator says going unmasked “certainly helps the flow of conversation.” But the conversation on the House floor on Friday approached sniping as lawmakers objected to being required to keep masking up until all 435 of them get their COVID-19 shots. Across Washington, the government is adjusting to new federal guidance easing up on when masks should be worn. “So much for following the science,” Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a urologist, said after complaining that he’d ...
Thursday’s COVID-19 guidance that will permit fully vaccinated people to go maskless almost everywhere is welcome, but the change will make it hard to tell who’s following the rules, according to local observers. “It’s a good sign,” said Mike Luciano, owner of Mike’s Court in Altoona. “(The COVID-19 crisis) is not totally over, but it’s getting close.” Yet the recommendations, under which unvaccinated people must still wear masks in many settings, may generate uncertainty in public places — because “if nobody’s wearing a mask, you don’t know who’s ...
HARRISBURG — Republican lawmakers across the country have tried to roll back the emergency powers that governors wielded during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they ordered businesses shut, mask-wearing in public and students home for distance learning. Pennsylvania’s Legislature is now taking its case to the ballot. In the first vote of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak, voters statewide will decide twin constitutional amendments that would give lawmakers much more power over disaster declarations, to apply whether the emergency is another pandemic or natural disaster. The ...
