Coronavirus Latest: Shutdown Deals Philadelphia First Real Economic Blow As City Braces For Major Reopen Protest
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The City of Philadelphia is bracing for a major reopen protest Friday. It comes as the continued shutdown of businesses is dealing the city its first real economic blow.
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Mayor Jim Kenney says new figures show just how badly COVID-19 is damaging city finances.
"April collections total $385 million, which is 47% lower than the previous April," Kenney said during Thursday's briefing.
City officials say the tremendous drop in economic activity is to be expected as the state continues stay-at-home orders to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
With no end in sight as to when Philadelphia's nonessential businesses will open, protests are planned for Friday for those calling on the city to reopen.
"Whatever protests we have we'll treat with First Amendment respect as long as people are expressing their views in a reasonable way and not damaging property or hurting anyone else, which I don't expect that to happen, so we'll see how it rolls out," Kenney said. "Our civil affairs folks and our police department are extremely capable of handling these, we've been handling protests for quite some time."
Demonstrators plan to drive around City Hall at noon on May 8, the day other parts of the commonwealth will move into the reopening phase.
City health officials say Philadelphia is moving in the right direction, however, slowly for some.
Less positive cases are being reported.
"The situation for the epidemic today is looking better in several ways. We've had 350 cases of the coronavirus infection diagnosed in Philadelphia residents in the past 24 hours, bringing us to 17,047 since the beginning of the epidemic. The trend in the number of cases is clearly downward and maybe that it's picking up speed in the way it's going down," Farley said. "All the data says that, in general, we're moving in the right direction, that our actions that we're doing right now are absolutely slowing the spread of the virus. That's a very good thing,"