Symbolic, yet meaningful change due to protest pressure ![]() Meanwhile, a growing number of Pennsylvania businesses are opting to ignore Wolf’s orders and keep operating on their own terms. 4 - Republicans like House Leader Kerry Benninghoff accused him of trying to “cancel Christmas.” When Wolf most recently announced new restrictions in response to surging cases - a ban on indoor dining and closures of theaters and gyms that is slated to last until Jan. In Pennsylvania, the splits have taken the form of partisan protests against mask-wearing and limitations on business operation. What that created was a lot of confusion over what the science said was effective,” he said. You can have a motorcycle rally with 450,000 people and not have a mask mandate. “What you saw was that some states decided that the message was anything goes. We had never been consulted in regards to the letter.”Īmon said that scattershot, highly localized response has come to define pandemic responses around the country. “We were basically told to sign ,” Eichelberger said at the time. One Republican county commissioner, Gary Eichelberger, was put in the awkward position of having his local State House representatives announce that Cumberland County would start ignoring business restrictions, without his input. In some cases, those moves were almost totally driven by state lawmakers who disagreed with Wolf but couldn’t build a coalition to stop him. In mid-May, a group of GOP-controlled counties started declaring mutinies against the lockdown. But then, as months passed, their fragile, disaster-driven bipartisan peace broke down. Tom Wolf decided how to allocate their federal money to individuals and businesses.Ĭounties and individual lawmakers more or less accepted Wolf’s lockdown orders for a while. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers quickly convened, passed rules to allow remote voting, and the GOP-controlled legislature and Democratic Gov. “So that set the tone for things.”Īt the outset of the pandemic hitting America, there was still some political unity.Ĭongress agreed on a first round of stimulus funding. “She was immediately sidelined, and there were no more daily press conferences coming out of the CDC,” Amon said. 26 explaining the seriousness of COVID-19, and warning that “disruption to everyday life may be severe.” The stock market fell, Trump was reportedly incensed, and soon afterward he announced that Vice President Mike Pence would oversee the White House’s response. Nancy Messonnier, who directs the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, gave a briefing on Feb. And he thinks the wheels began to come off when President Donald Trump decided to pull pandemic response authority away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He’s an epidemiologist and public health professor and heads Drexel University’s Office of Global Health. response to the pandemic was fragmented almost from the very beginning. ![]() (Katie Landis/PA Post) Partisan response to the pandemic lingers ![]() About 1,000 people showed up to protest Gov. Protesters hold signs during a May 15, 2020, rally outside the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. So which 2020 themes were most significant and will most clearly shape what the road ahead holds for Pennsylvania? We chose four. However, it’s possible to take cues from the past. ![]() Lombardo, who is now a professor at the University of South Alabama, is careful to note it’s impossible to predict how the future will remember the present - too many moving parts and extenuating factors. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor
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