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BELLEFONTE -- Although there are no cases of the coronavirus in Centre County, the county continues to brace for a potential outbreak of the deadly epidemic.
Near the end of the board of commissioners' meeting on Tuesday, Centre County Administrator Margaret Gray updated the media on the county's preparations to date.
"The county continues to closely monitor the COVID-19 situation. We are in touch with the (Pennsylvania) Department of Health updates that are coming to us and looking to them for guidance. We continue to collaborate with local municipalities … we're participating with the Centre Region's infectious hazards planning group which includes representatives from the hospital, school district and university."
Gray added that later Tuesday, she was planning to meet with Bellefonte Borough representatives to share information about how the county is "approaching this."
According to Gray, the county has also established a COVID-19 Planning Team.
Gray said the team is, "looking at situational assessments so that as this evolves, we can make quick recommendations to the Board of Commissioners of any action that needs to take place."
As far as county employees are concerned, Gray said that it will be business as usual -- for now, at least.
"We are providing guidance to our own employees. We are encouraging them to use the (Pennsylvania) Department of Health site as a good reference point. It's been added to our website. Internally here, we have initiated sweeps of our three major buildings -- Willowbank, courthouse and the courthouse annex. We are distributing supplies to our facilities management office so that all of our offices have the supplies they need for the purpose of really keeping our offices clean and safe for employees, the visiting public and to slow the progression of this in whatever responsible ways that we can. That's where we are today."
According to Gray, there are no plans to close county office buildings.
"We are looking at all different types of scenarios. The recommendations that would be made regarding the continuity of operations would be done on a situation-by-situation, case-by-case, location-by-location basis. We are talking about the 'what ifs' and continuing to put some contingency plans around those possible scenarios," Gray said.
Penn State University, which is currently on spring break, will begin classes again on Monday, March 16. The Ohio State University, another Big Ten university, recently announced that classes will be going online at least until Monday, March 30. Gray said that the county is
"We participate as part of the infectious hazard planning group, the university is at the table for that and we'll be hearing more from them. We receive reports as the rest of you do," she said.
She added that there have been no changes as far as visitation is concerned at the Centre County Correctional Facility.
Chair Michael Pipe also chimed on the COVID-19 situation.
"It's important in terms of our continuity of operations," Pipe said, "that we keep our staff and our citizens as healthy as possible."
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, there are 11 presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania.
Counties impacted to date include: Delaware (1), Monroe (1), Montgomery (8) and Wayne (1).
In spite of the 11 cases, Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Rachel Levine said the commonwealth is not recommending that large gatherings be canceled.
The Board of Commissioners will meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 17 at the Willowbank Building in Bellefonte.