Citing Lock Haven’s Coronavirus Infection Rate, City Manager Urges City Council to Go Slow
LOCK HAVEN – When city council meets for its virtual meeting Monday, May 4, members will be voting on an extension of Lock Haven’s state of emergency proclamation in response to the coronavirus pandemic. As written by City Manager Greg Wilson, that proclamation will recommend city residents and businesses “take extreme precautions…as if still in the state’s ‘red phase.’”
The proclamation calls for city-owned public places to continue to be closed to the public and recommends that any county, state or federal facilities normally open to the public remain closed.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday announced that Clinton County will be part of a 24-county swath of north-central Pennsylvania able to lessen some state-imposed restrictions. But city manager Wilson has prepared an extensive “backgrounder” on why he is recommending that businesses, contractors and non-profits, given the state go-ahead to reopen, should proceed with caution.
The proclamation, if approved by city council, will also keep also city recreational facilities closed and prohibit gatherings of more than 10 people in public places.
In making his proposal, the city manager cites the rate of virus infection in the city’s zip code (higher than 50 per 100,000 people) and the rate of positive tests of totals tests administered remaining higher than 10 percent of those tested.
City Manager Wilson’s advance release:
(The proposed extension of the state of emergency is on Monday’s council meeting agenda, and the proposed resolution is on the city’s home page).
While the county may have been moved to the yellow phase by the Governor, it is important for residents in southern Clinton County to remember that all the confirmed infections of COVID-19 are in southern, not western Clinton County. For that reason, the city has been tracking its 14-day COVID-19 infection rate and testing rate and it is proposed to City Council that decisions about the community be based on its zip code infection and testing rate, rather than the county-wide statistics.
Any county resident can track their zip code’s positive and negative tests and calculate the 14-day infection rate themselves from the information provided by both the PA Department of Health’s site and the US Census December 2019 population estimates. The December 2019 census estimate put the residents of the city’s zip code at 18,753 people and Mill Hall’s zip code at 7082.
While the state recommends an infection rate of 50 per 100,000 residents over the previous 14 days as a safe rate for easing restrictions. The county does nearly meet the metric set by the state of 50 per 100,000 and is currently at 56 per 100,000 over the past 14 days.
However, in the Lock Haven zip code, the current 14-day rate is 74 per 100,000, significantly higher than the countywide rate.
Only 0.69% of the residents in the city’s zip code have been tested, and of those that have, more than 10% have tested positive, with the World Health Organization recommending a rate of less than 10% of tests taken coming back positive as an effective rate of testing. Only 130 of the 18,753 residents have been tested. Today, the city’s zip code accounts for 44% of all county infections.
If you combine the Lock Haven and Mill Hall zip codes, you’re looking at 66% of the county’s total confirmed infections in the last 14 days and a 14-day infection rate of 81 per 100,000. Still, between the two communities combined, only 0.67% or residents have been tested and of those that have, 12% have come back positive.
I am recommending to City Council that we, as a community, stay cautious and try to avoid additional reasons for people to venture into the city where infection rates are higher than they are in other portions of the county, especially western Clinton County including Renovo, North Bend, Westport and Pottersdale where there are no confirmed cases from testing.
That’s why it’s important that people throughout Clinton County understand it is still very, very important to take every available safety measure when coming to the City, and why I have proposed to City Council that they take a measured and date-driven way to determine when it is safer to open city facilities to the public.
