Huntingdon County is one of several in the state planning to move from lockdown red to yellow status without authorization from Gov. Tom Wolf — a move that Wolf Monday compared to “cowardly” desertion in the midst of war.

“The curve has been flattened, ICU beds are in abundance, and access to ventilators is not in question, therefore, the undersigned stand with any business in Huntingdon County that chooses to reopen (on Friday),” states a letter to the governor signed Monday by the county’s two Republican commissioners, Mark Sather and Scott Walls; District Attorney Dave Smith, state Sens. Judy Ward, R-Blair, and Jake Corman, R-Centre, and state Rep. Rich Irvin, R-Huntingdon.

Encouraging businesses to operate in defiance of the coronavirus lockdown order could result in the state withholding some CARES Act funding and other discretionary money to counties, put businesses at risk of losing their licenses and their insurance coverage, while also putting them in jeopardy of harming their customers and employees and of having their employees stay home while continuing to collect unemployment legally, according to Wolf and other state officials.

“The fight is not yet over and now is not the time to give up,” Wolf said on a webcast Monday. “Those politicians who decide to cave in to this virus need to understand the consequences.”

Opening in defiance of the closure order, which Wolf said is science-based, is both “morally wrong” and “very bad business.”

Wolf “overstepped his bounds” in saying that politicians in the breakaway counties are tantamount to cowardly deserters, according to Sather, the Huntingdon commissioners chairman.

“That was extreme,” said Blair County Commissioners Chairman Bruce Erb, of Wolf’s war analogy.

“I think he just lashed out,” Sather said.

The governor’s characterization doesn’t take into account that county commissioners are “the spokespersons for the business community and for the residents,” Sather said.

Moreover, the action of the Republican commissioners in defiance of a Democratic governor is not “political,” because “businesses are neither Republican nor Democratic,” Sather said.

The state should have granted Huntingdon County permission last week to open this Friday, along with Blair, Bedford and Cambria counties, because its community case numbers are in line with those of neighboring counties, except for the recent outbreak at the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, Ward said.

The prison’s corrections officers go out into the surrounding area, but the inmates don’t, so the Department of Health’s overall numbers that include the prison’s “are not reflective of what’s going on in the community,” Ward said.

The state doesn’t see it that way.

Case numbers in congregate facilities can’t be separated from their counties’ numbers because the employees of those facilities circulate in the communities, potentially carrying infections both into and out of the facilities, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine has said.

The Huntingdon commissioners are inviting businesses to open provided they can do it safely, following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which are clearer than the state’s guidelines, which are confusing, especially in their distinctions between what’s allowed in the red and yellow phases, and in their application to waivers for essential business operations, according to Sather.

If the state follows through and punishes counties like Huntingdon financially, those counties would almost certainly sue, Erb predicted.

“People have just had enough,” Ward said. “They’ve had all they can take.”

Blair probably would have been a breakaway county too, if Wolf hadn’t authorized it to go to yellow last week, Ward said.

“We certainly would have had the discussion,” Erb said.

Even though Blair got the go-ahead last week, there’s reason to feel rapport with the breakaway counties, according to state Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Hollidaysburg.

“We may find ourselves being engaged in the very same conversation very soon, making the case we should be going from yellow to green,” Gregory said.

As desirable as it may be to escape the shutdown, it won’t be easy for the organizations that will be doing it, judging by the county government’s full-time effort to get the courthouse ready, according to Erb.

That “fairly big undertaking” involves both physical changes and protocol changes to keep employees and visitors safe in a building “not designed for a pandemic,” Erb said.