Its pandemic authority weakened, the Wolf administration said Tuesday it has no plans to pursue another COVID-19 emergency declaration, or attempt to impose new statewide restrictions or vaccine mandates, in response to the highly contagious omicron variant that is spreading quickly and overloading Pennsylvania’s hospitals.
The Health Department is responding to the surge by pushing more residents to get vaccinated and taking steps to support hospitals hit by severe staffing shortages and a growing tide of COVID-19 patients. But “we are not considering further mitigation at this time,” Acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter said at a news conference in Harrisburg.
Gov. Tom Wolf, in a separate appearance Tuesday, swatted away a question about the possibility of new restrictions by stressing that vaccines are his administration’s strategy for fighting the spread of COVID-19.
“We can can live lives a lot more freely than we could before and we don’t have to make the same harsh decisions we did two years ago. So we’re in a different place,” Wolf said on KDKA-AM radio in Pittsburgh.
By necessity, Wolf’s approach to the virus — encouraging vaccination while trying to manage the consequences of rampant spread — has shifted from the early days of the pandemic, when he ordered schools to shut down for in-person instruction, issued a statewide stay-at-home order, closed businesses deemed “non-life-sustaining” and mandated masks to be worn in public.
Some of those tools are no longer available to him, either legally or politically, the result of fierce pushback by GOP lawmakers and pandemic-weary residents and business owners.
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