One day after signing an order to protect essential workers who are employed at businesses that are authorized to maintain in-person operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine stressed that there will be no additional time given for those establishments to be in compliance.

“We’re not going to extend the time for the implementation for the orders,” said Levine. “We recommend that if someone comes to a retailer, to a grocery store, and doesn’t have a mask, that they be asked to go home and get a mask.

“If the store has extra masks, they can certainly give one to that customer and that would be great. But if not, then the person should be asked to go home to get a mask.”

Failure to comply with the requirements will result in enforcement action that could include citations, fines, or license suspensions.

The order goes into effect at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Levine said that she would also like to see the requirements extended to public transportation outlets as well.

“We would prefer if all companies, such as Uber and Lyft, did do that,” she said. “And I think it would be much better if on public transportation everyone wore a mask, and we are recommending that. It would be strongly recommended for riders of public transportation to wear a mask.

“The more people who are wearing a cloth mask, the more effective it is. But it’s not specifically required. These masks are easy to make at home, and we do have instructions on our website about how you can make a mask. We’re really recommending that as a public health measure, it’ll be safer if everyone who goes outside wears a mask.”

Levine emphasized that there would be no extensions ­– or exemptions – in conforming to the order.

“I don’t know about where it would be a safety hazard to wear a mask,” she said. “For some individuals, because of physical issues who can’t wear a mask, that’s already covered in the executive order and they don’t have to.

“But I’m not aware of any business, or any manufacturer where wearing a mask at the business would be somehow a hazard. I guess we’d consider that. But there is not going to be an extension of the time of the order for when it needs to be implemented.”

In numbers released Thursday, there were 1,245 additional positive cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 27,735. All 67 counties in Pennsylvania have cases of COVID-19. The department also reported 60 new deaths among positive cases, bringing the statewide total to 707.

“Our mitigation efforts have been successful but they need to continue,” said Levine. “We need to do everything we can to prevent the spread of the dangerous virus, COVID-19. And so we want to protect the workers that are in those life-sustaining activities, the really very brave workers that are in grocery stores, which are in pharmacies and other types of businesses that help us every day.

“And so the best way to protect them is for everyone to wear a mask. Remember, my mask protects you, and your mask protects me. If everyone is wearing a mask, then more are protected and we can help prevent the spread of this virus.”

Nursing homes

Levine outlined a plan to help nursing homes deal with COVID-19 and a way to separate residents and staff in the process.

“We have talked about how if they have patients with COVID-19, if they are on different units, to actually put them on the same unit so you have a unit where patients do have COVID-19, with specific staff and person protective equipment to take care of them,” she said. “And then a separate unit where patients don’t have COVID-19 with completely separate staff, so there’s no mixing of staff and we can hopefully isolate the cases there.

“We haven’t talked about creating an only COVID-19 nursing home, but that’s something we can possibly think about in the future.”

Moving forward

With East Stroudsburg University’s Koehler Fieldhouse being turned into a field hospital and mass testing sites in play in the southeastern and northeastern portions of the state, Levine outlined details for both.

“There were a lot of discussions with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency as well as federal authorities about the location, and it was strongly felt that that was the best location,” she said of East Stroudsburg’s campus. “It would see overflow patients, but not from other states; it would potentially see overflow patients from hospitals in the northeast.

“When it’s (the mass testing site) up and running, people will be able to register online to get a test. And the priorities will be high-risk individuals, so it would be health care workers, and then seniors with symptoms. There is no plan to do any testing for people who are nonsymptomatic. If you are asymptomatic, we’re not able to do that kind of population-based surveillance testing. We just simply don’t have the resources … we hope to in the future.”

Levine also noted that there are currently no other locations being considered for a mass-testing site.

“We would like to set up other mass testing sites in the future, but right now we’re concentrating on the Montgomery County mass testing site and the new one in the northeast,” she said.