by Kate Dolan

The stability of COVID-19 daily case counts in Philadelphia, the city’s MaskUp campaign and school reopening plans served as the main topics during last week’s COVID-19 update press conferences.

“Case counts from the coronavirus continue to rise nationally and in Pennsylvania,” said the Philadelphia Health Commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley. “Now here in Philadelphia our daily case counts over the past week have been stable or increasing slightly.”

As of July 11, there were 27,367 confirmed cases and 1,630 deaths since the pandemic began. Last week the city was averaging about 115 cases per day. A large number of tests were reported last Wednesday and the percentage of positive tests was 5 - 6% — a number used to monitor the epidemic and one that’s been stable over the past couple of weeks.

Farley acknowledged that “it changes a lot from day to day” and suggested checking the graphs provided on the city’s testing and data page here (phila.gov/programs/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/testing-and-data/) to keep informed of overall trends.

Of the rapid growth in cases nationally, as well as in areas in Pennsylvania such as Allegheny County, Farley spoke about the need to prevent this increase from happening here.

“We need high levels of compliance,” he said.

On June 26, Mayor Jim Kenney and Farley signed an executive order requiring Philadelphia residents to wear a mask in any public indoor setting and outdoors whenever social distances of six feet or greater can not be met. Children eight and younger and those with certain health conditions are exempt.

A city-wide media campaign launched last week called MaskUpPHL, to remind Philadelphians to wear masks. The city has been monitoring mask usage by studying surveillance footage of people exiting retail stores and people in SEPTA stations. In late June, of people exiting stores the number wearing masks was 78%. The estimate from SEPTA stations was 55%.

“To avoid a second wave, we need to do better than that,” Farley said, explaining that wearing a mask catches the droplets that spread the virus from spreading to others.

The media campaign includes SEPTA bus advertisements, floor decals, and digital, newspaper and radio ads in several languages, carrying one of the campaign’s two slogans: “Love Your Neighbor. Wear a Mask” and “Philly Never Backs Down. Mask Up.”

Kenney joined the conference to promote the campaign’s messaging, emphasizing the need to dismiss any confusion over mask use.

“With mixed messaging on the federal level, we know that one out of four Philadelphians are still on the fence or opposed to wearing masks,” the Mayor said. “This campaign aims to normalize mask use for everyone. Mask use is critical to continuing to reopen and resuming a sense of normalcy in our lives.”

School reopenings

At last Tuesday’s conference, Philadelphia School District Superintendent Dr. William Hite, Jr. discussed reopening schools, saying that the plan is in process and the school district is considering much of the feedback sourced from a June survey given to more than 36,000 parents, guardians, staff, community members and students in its reopening plan.

“Our goal is to share our final plan next week in order to allow our staff and families to prepare for the start of a successful school year in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Hite.

Many factors are involved in determining reopening, including safety precautions in place at schools, discerning adequate ventilation in older buildings, and students returning in shifts to the levels of comfort felt by teachers, staff, students and parents. Dr. Hite did share how they are looking at reopening as far as priorities.

“We are prioritizing first by our most vulnerable children and then by the children who really need to be in front of a teacher,” Dr. Hite said, describing these groups as including children with special needs, English language learners, younger children in preschool, Kindergarten and first grade, as well as students in career and technical education courses.

“Those are children we want to see on a more regular basis, if not every day.”