The usually soft-spoken Gov. Tom Wolf pushed back against county and state leaders in Schuylkill and other counties which plan to defy his stay-at-home orders and unilaterally move their counties from “red” to “yellow” this Friday.

Likening the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic as a war, Wolf called the officials in these counties “cowardly” and accused them of deserting and abandoning the deliberate plan of attack that he and health officials have initiated.

“We are fighting a war that has taken the lives of too many people. And we’re winning. The politicians who are encouraging us to quit the fight are acting in a most cowardly way” Wolf said. There have been nearly 60,000 who have tested positive and nearly 3,800 deaths in the state, according to the Health Department.

In addition to Schuylkill, Dauphin, Lebanon and Beaver counties, which are moving ahead with plans to reopen two days from now, four others - Berks, Lancaster, Cumberland and Franklin - are pondering whether to do the same.

All eight are Republican-led counties; Wolf is a Democrat.

Wolf warned the counties that he will withhold discretionary federal stimulus funds if they reopen without the state’s authorization.

Twenty-four counties in the north-central and northwestern parts of the state opened last Friday; another 13 in Western Pennsylvania will move from “red” to “yellow” this Friday.

Carbon County sent a letter to Wolf on Tuesday, drafted by the office of Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, and signed by Sen. John Yudichak, I-14, Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Berks/Carbon/Schuylkill, and Carbon Commissioners Wayne Nothstein, Rocky Ahner and Chris Lukasevich.

The county said its case count falls within the administration’s guidelines for a safe reopening, and local hospitals are properly prepared to test and care for current and future coronavirus patients.

Lehigh and Northampton are sticking with the governor’s plan, although Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton and Lehigh, and Mario Scavello, R-Monroe and Northampton, have both urged Wolf to start opening the three counties immediately. Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, said he is not recommending defiance of the governor’s orders. Wolf put some counties under stay-at-home orders in mid-March, then included the rest of the state on April 1.

During the weekend, when counties began announcing their plans to flout the governor’s order, Wolf’s response was more measured as he told officials that they were gambling with the lives of their residents.

On Monday, however, Wolf told officials in the go-it-alone counties and those contemplating doing the same that their actions will have “consequences.”

He said for these officials to encourage businesses in their respective counties to open without appropriate safeguards is “selfish and unsafe.”

Wolf also warned that there will be trouble for business owners if they open without proper authorization. They could face loss of licenses and insurance coverage, and their employees might be denied workers’ compensation benefits if they are injured on the job. If employees in these rogue counties decide not to return to work, their unemployment compensation will continue even if their businesses reopen, Wolf said.

“I won’t sit back and watch residents who live in counties under Stay at Home orders get sick because local leaders cannot see the risks of COVID-19 and push to reopen prematurely,” Wolf said. Along with the pressure being put on Wolf and the state Health Department, President Donald Trump weighed in with a tweet Monday accusing Democrats of playing politics and putting their foot on the brakes to slow down reopening.

Trump is scheduled to visit a medical equipment distributor plant in Upper Macungie Township on Thursday, his first visit to the Lehigh Valley since announcing his candidacy for president in 2015.

“The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, “Trump said in Monday’s tweet, “and they are fully aware of what that entails. The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them. Don’t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!”

Asked to react to the president’s tweet, Wolf artfully dodged being drawn into a war of words with the president. He said the plan is to reopen the state in a measured way by doing it as safely as possible.

“The irresponsible thing to do is to just willy-nilly go off and pretend that we can wave a magic wand and go back into business and suspend the reality to this virus that’s surrounding us,” Wolf said.

In what has become a political tug-of-war, business owners and employees, both desperate to get back to work, are caught in the middle.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com