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COVID-19

Safety director: County getting ready for vaccine

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Plans are developing in Blair County to be ready when COVID-19 vaccinations become available, Director of Public Safety Mark Taylor said Tuesday. “I think hope is something we all need to hang onto,” Taylor told commissioners who convened a meeting through video and telephone connections. “We know this virus can be defeated.” Before speaking of developing vaccination plans, Taylor reported that the amount of county residents testing positive for COVID-19 continues to increase. As of Monday, the deaths of 88 residents were linked to COVID-19 to date, he ...

Virus bill won’t pay out $1,200

WASHINGTON — With time running out, lawmakers on Sunday closed in on a proposed COVID-19 relief bill that would provide roughly $300 in extra federal weekly unemployment benefits but not another round of $1,200 in direct payments to most Americans, leaving that issue for President-elect Joe Biden to wrestle over with a new Congress next year. The $908 billion aid package to be released today would be attached to a larger year-end spending bill needed to avert a government shutdown this coming weekend. The cash payments were popular when they were first distributed after the ...

Painful memories

HONOLULU — Navy sailor Mickey Ganitch was getting ready to play in a Pearl Harbor football game as the sun came up on Dec. 7, 1941. Instead, he spent the morning — still wearing his football padding and brown team shirt — scanning the sky as Japanese planes rained bombs on the U.S. ...

Shrinking recovery number tells tale

It’s a minor statistical change, but a telling indicator of how much the coronavirus has surged in Pennsylvania recently: On Oct. 6, the share of people recovered from COVID-19 — those who had survived 30 days after testing positive — was 82 percent, a number that had been stable for many weeks. By Friday, that recovery number had dipped to 58 percent, meaning that despite the pandemic having lasted for nine months, 42 percent of all infected residents in the state have tested positive within the last 30 days. The state set a record for new cases Friday at 11,763, several ...

Area music educators set tone for virtual instruction

Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series on local music education throughout the pandemic. As a new wave of COVID-19 cases began racing through the state in October, more school districts opted to shift to full virtual learning. Elizabeth Sheehan, a senior at the Hollidaysburg Area High School, said in the school’s current virtual model, music students join a live class and listen to the teacher’s lesson, though all the students are muted. She said they use a PDF of a musical piece and play along with a recording, then rate themselves on a scale of one to five. ...

Business leaders urge vigilance in virus fight

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase in the area, a local business leader is calling for businesses and residents to step up their efforts to stop the spread. Philip Devorris, president/CEO of The Blair Companies and chairman of the Blair County Chamber of Commerce CEO Executive Roundtable, has sent a letter to 35 members of the roundtable and 60 members of the chamber’s Presidents Forum. At issue is what health care workers call “COVID denial” — which can take forms ranging from a belief that COVID-19 is no more serious than a routine cold or belief that ...