Broome County Executive Jason Garnar Worried About Pennsylvania COVID Rates

Broome County Executive Jason Garnar says he’s really worried about Pennsylvania.

With Broome sharing a border with the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania and the Keystone State posting its ninth consecutive daily coronavirus case count over one-thousand, Garnar says he’s afraid the Commonwealth is on the verge of being added to New York’s list were people traveling into New York have to quarantine for 14 days.

Garnar says he doesn’t know how that can be handled with hundreds of people that live in one state and work in the other, just a few miles down the road. That could make for some very serious problems for businesses on both sides of the border.  There are even school districts that share students, like Wayne Highlands in Pennsylvania and Deposit Central Schools in New York.

Pennsylvania October 14 reported a total of 175,822 cases with 8,411 deaths to-date.  Governor Tom Wolf and Health Secretary Doctor Rachel Lavine say the state-wide positivity rate went up to 3.9% from 3.7% from last week.  Bradford County is listed in the substantial level of transmission while Susquehanna is listed as moderate and Wayne County low.

Bradford County had 33 new cases from Monday, October 12 to 392 and six deaths during the pandemic.  Susquehanna County had nine new cases from Monday to 354 with 28 deaths and Wayne County had three new cases from Monday to 268 cases and 12 deaths.

Of course, the problem is even bigger than the entire Southern Tier with New York sharing a border with Pennsylvania from the far western part of the state, down to New York City.