Coronavirus Philadelphia: Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley Says Safeguards Need To Be In Place Before Reopening City
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphians have hunkered down and stayed home since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Delaware Valley. Schools have been shut down for the remainder of the year.
Nonessential businesses have closed, restaurants are only offering takeout and delivery, and beginning Monday Pennsylvania residents have to wear masks while inside essential businesses.
There is talk of reopening parts of the county but Gov. Tom Wolf is staying the course and now, demonstrators are heading to Harrisburg today to protest his decision.
Many Philadelphians are wondering how long should we wait to reopen the city. Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley joined CBS3 to discuss the city's reopening.
Q: We'll get right to what's happening today in Harrisburg. A group called Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine are organizing a rally. What are your thoughts on the "excessive quarantine claims" and what could be a gathering of thousands of people?
We'll I wish they wouldn't do it because there is a likelihood that at least one of those people there will have the infection. They're going to get together and pass the infection amongst each other and bring it back to other people. So they're risking their health and the health of everybody else.
Q: What do you think will be the key to safely reopening the city?
Well, we need to have a few things in place. First, we need more availability of rapid testing so we can diagnose more of the cases, we know that we're missing most of the cases right now. We need to be able to do contact tracing where we identify a case and quickly find out who they may have exposed so that those people can be quarantined so they don't pass the infection onto others and we need to think about how we can do a better job at protecting those most vulnerable -- many of our deaths have been in nursing homes.
Q: What continues to be your message to Philadelphians during this time?
I know it's really tough for everybody cooped up inside but we've had a bad epidemic more than 9,000 cases, more than 3oo deaths. If we were to just go back to the way we lived before, the epidemic would return and it could be even much bigger. So as tough as it is people need to continue to stay inside, stay away from other people, wear a mask when you have to go out until we have many of these other safeguards in place.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW.
