Emphasizing that it is a recommendation, not a mandate, Pa. Dept. of Health (PDH) Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine and outgoing Pa. Dept. of Ed. (PDE) Secretary Pedro Rivera issued guidance to help school districts determine what type of educational experience to offer this fall, based on the amount of community transmission of the novel coronavirus still circulating in the United States.

The new guidance, which Secretary Levine emphasized is a recommendation, not a mandate, classifies counties according to the average incidence of positive cases per 100,000 population and/or the percentage of positive tests over the past seven days. Notably absent from the guidance is any reference to hospitalizations, which are still tracked by the state, but which have not been used for any of the recommendations or mandates coming from the state’s executive branch since the first several weeks of the pandemic.

For example, Northampton County, which contains most of the Bethlehem Area School District, had (as of Aug. 7) a seven-day average confirmed case rate of 27.9 positive tests per 100,000 population and a percent-positive rate of 2.9 percent, but only had 0.3 percent of all hospital ER visits attributable to the novel coronavirus. According to the chart issued by Levine and Rivera, Northampton County is an area of “moderate” disease, and schools should only offer hybrid or fully online options. (The figures for Lehigh County, part of which is in Bethlehem Area School District, are similar: 28.3 per 100,000 incidence rate, 3.1 percent positivity rate, and 0.6 percent ER attributable rate.)

Responding to a question from a Lancaster media outlet regarding the distinction between a recommendation and a mandate, Rivera said, “In order to institute a mandate, you need legislative authority. Last year, in response to COVID-19, the legislature gave us the power to provide relief to districts on, for example, waiving the 180-day requirement. After that legislative action, which is extremely specific, we’re not able to mandate anything from the department of education. What we can do is what we are doing: Tracking the research, looking at the data, [etc.].”

Another reporter noted that districts have come up with plans already, and asked whether they need to create new ones. The secretaries responded that districts should be prepared to go to a different model within their existing plans, if conditions change.

If these recommendations were followed today, according to Levine, only 25 counties would be advised to offer fully in-person learning, with 41 counties recommended for hybrid or fully online, and only one (Union County) at the risk Levine deems “substantial.” The situation in Union County is more complicated than its 185.3 confirmed cases per 100,000 population implies: The vast majority of cases are inside a federal prison in the county.