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COVID-19

ABCD: 58 awarded CHIRP grants

The Altoona Blair County Development Corp., in cooperation with the Blair County commissioners, announced Friday that $1.35 million has been awarded through the county’s portion of the COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program. ABCD processed 67 applications of which 58 eligible applicants were awarded CHIRP grants. Funds will be used to help these companies pay for or reimburse eligible operating costs, including employee payroll, rent, mortgage payments, utilities bills and other expenditures. A list of awardees will be made public on the Blair County website by Aug. ...

Contact tracing breach hits 72K

HARRISBURG — Employees of a vendor paid to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing in Pennsylvania may have compromised the private information of at least 72,000 people, including their exposure status and their sexual orientation, the state Health Department said Thursday. Workers at Atlanta-based Insight Global “disregarded security protocols established in the contract and created unauthorized documents” outside the state’s secure data system, Health Department spokesman Barry Ciccocioppo said. “We are extremely dismayed that employees from Insight Global acted in a way that ...

Virus uptick renews vaccination call

Blair County’s director of public safety made a renewed plea Tuesday for local residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19, pointing to an uptick in the number of cases involving young people and an increase in the number of hospitalizations. Mark Taylor also told the county commissioners that there is an increase in the number of residents “on ventilators fighting for their lives.” The increase in hospitalizations and those on ventilators was “unexpected,” Taylor said. Although the recent numbers have been disappointing,Taylor reported one good sign — only nine new ...

City creates talent bank to garner spending advice

Altoona is accepting talent bank applications from anyone who would like to become part of the committee that will advise Mayor Matt Pacifico and City Council on how best to use the $41 million the city hopes to receive from the recently adopted American Rescue Plan. Officials expect to get half the money and the guidance on how it can be used by May 10, although officials would prefer to get the guidance earlier — perhaps by the end of this week, according to acting City Manager Omar Strohm. It doesn’t make sense to begin naming committee members until the guidance shows how the ...

CDC revises mask rules

NEW YORK — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased its guidelines Tuesday on the wearing of masks outdoors, saying fully vaccinated Americans don’t need to cover their faces anymore unless they are in a big crowd of strangers. And those who are unvaccinated can go outside without masks in some situations, too. The new guidance represents another carefully calibrated step on the road back to normal from the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 570,000 people in U.S. For most of the past year, the CDC had been advising Americans to wear masks outdoors if they ...