Butler County will be moving to the yellow phase of Governor Wolf’s reopening plan next week.
The announcement was made earlier this afternoon. Wolf said Butler along with 12 other counties in the southwestern region would be reopening on Friday, May 15th.
Essentially, the move lifts the stay-at-home order for aggressive mitigation efforts.
Beaver County was excluded from the reopening plan. The county has nearly 500 confirmed cases and 78 deaths. The Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver has been the epicenter of the outbreak in the county.
Collectively, the southwestern region has 2,843 cases; which represents roughly 5 percent of the cases in the state.
Two more COVID-19 cases were announced in Butler County on Friday, bringing the total to 192.
Meanwhile, there were more than 1,300 cases announced statewide, which now brings the statewide total over 54,000 confirmed cases.
There was also an increase in negative tests. There have been over 216,000 confirmed negative tests.
The death toll continues to increase. The state department of health says that reconciled data from the past week led to more than 200 deaths reported today, that now brings the state total to 3,616.
As of Friday afternoon, Butler Memorial Hospital is treating seven patients for COVID-19 with two in the ICU.
