Gov. Tom Wolf Pushes Back Against Efforts To Dismantle Coronavirus Mitigation Steps
HARRISBURG (KDKA) - The battle in Harrisburg over Governor Tom Wolf's coronavirus restrictions rages on, much to his frustration.
However, the governor isn't holding back much these days.
Wolf has been navigating through a pandemic, adjusting, and making decisions as circumstances change.
Recently, a federal judge ruled his crowd restrictions and closure orders were unconstitutional, and then the legislature took issue with the administration acting without consultation with legislators.
Not to mention, bills have been passed to try and dismantle his efforts.
It's easy to see he's fed up.
"They need to stop trying to get rid of public health measures that are keeping Pennsylvania safe," Gov. Wolf said in a press conference. "Yeah, we don't like it. Yeah, it really puts hampers on our lives, but it saves lives. If they have an alternative, I'm all ears, but all they want to do is dismantle this stuff."
Wolf said that it's time to stop playing games with the lives of Pennsylvanians.
"I get concerned when we play games," he said. "We posture and we play fast and loose with the lives of Pennsylvanians. I thought we were dealing with the things to do with this pandemic, with this virus, and the reality that this virus is very infectious and it has killed 200,000 people in the United States, 8,000 in Pennsylvania, despite our good record. That is something that I think we ought to be really laser-focused on and it has created economic hardships, we ought to be focused on that."
Gov. Wolf says he is in regular contact with legislative leaders of both parties, which they deny.
WATCH: Gov. Wolf Speaks Out
They say he's acting alone.
"What we can't do is just sort of some feel-good law that says, 'OK, we're going to suspend the law of gravity, we're going to say that this virus isn't going to infect people,'" Wolf said. "It will. It's out there and it's waiting for us to do stupid things, we can't do that."
Wolf added that ignoring the virus is not going to make it go away.
"Yes, it's a wonderful and very seductive thing to look at these things and say, 'Yeah, let's just suspend reality and ignore it, let's just sort of, you know, hold our ears, close our eyes, and just pretend we can go back to the way things were,'" he said. "We really can't, we've got to acknowledge that the new reality is constraining us. It's something that we still have a lot to learn about but we've tried to learn as we've gone along and the decisions we've had to make are tough ones."
The governor thinks they can work together to help restaurants, small businesses, and others that are hurting while maintaining mitigation efforts.
The governor isn't backing down on his recommended crowd limits but school districts are saying they will open their stadiums to more fans this week after the judge's ruling.
