50 signatures reached
To: Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Pennsylvania County Councilors
Allegheny County: React Responsibly to COVID-19
Order all Non-Essential Allegheny County Employees to Remain At Home
Why is this important?
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has ordered all nonessential businesses to shut down across Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh City Mayor Bill Peduto has declared a state of emergency and has ordered that all nonessential City employees stay home. However, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald refuses to take action.
Thanks to Rich Fitzgerald's "fiddle while Rome burns" attitude, county employees congregate in places like the City-County Building and then return to their communities all over Allegheny and surrounding Western Pennsylvania counties. After being in the crowded, Downtown Pittsburgh environment where they risk contracting COVID-19 every time they take an elevator, they leave and spread the virus across some 1,000 square miles!
How is this responsible?
How is this leadership?
Many people who catch COVID-19 will take up to 5 days to develop symptoms... but they will be contagious from the moment they catch it. Many people who catch COVID-19 will have mild symptoms... but they will still put everyone they come into contact with at risk.
Who is at risk of needing ICU treatment for COVID-19? Who is at risk of dying from COVID-19? Our neighbors here in Allegheny County, that's who. That means cancer patients and cancer survivors... like the more than 110,000 patients per year treated at one University of Pittsburgh Medical Center cancer clinic alone. That means the 1 in 11 people in our county who have diabetes. Not to mention the 1 in 10 people in Allegheny County who just happen to be senior citizens!
At this writing, county employees who guard the doors of our own City-County Building are not even enforcing the City of Pittsburgh's ban on keeping out non-essential employees! That means that firefighters, police officers and other first responders who already place their lives and health at risk to protect the rest of us cannot even find protection in their own workplace.
Tell Rich Fitzgerald and the Allegheny County Council that it is time to start following the sensible example of the Governor of our state and the Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh and order all non-essential county employees to stay home until the pandemic is under control. Tell them TODAY! Make them do it TODAY!
Thanks to Rich Fitzgerald's "fiddle while Rome burns" attitude, county employees congregate in places like the City-County Building and then return to their communities all over Allegheny and surrounding Western Pennsylvania counties. After being in the crowded, Downtown Pittsburgh environment where they risk contracting COVID-19 every time they take an elevator, they leave and spread the virus across some 1,000 square miles!
How is this responsible?
How is this leadership?
Many people who catch COVID-19 will take up to 5 days to develop symptoms... but they will be contagious from the moment they catch it. Many people who catch COVID-19 will have mild symptoms... but they will still put everyone they come into contact with at risk.
Who is at risk of needing ICU treatment for COVID-19? Who is at risk of dying from COVID-19? Our neighbors here in Allegheny County, that's who. That means cancer patients and cancer survivors... like the more than 110,000 patients per year treated at one University of Pittsburgh Medical Center cancer clinic alone. That means the 1 in 11 people in our county who have diabetes. Not to mention the 1 in 10 people in Allegheny County who just happen to be senior citizens!
At this writing, county employees who guard the doors of our own City-County Building are not even enforcing the City of Pittsburgh's ban on keeping out non-essential employees! That means that firefighters, police officers and other first responders who already place their lives and health at risk to protect the rest of us cannot even find protection in their own workplace.
Tell Rich Fitzgerald and the Allegheny County Council that it is time to start following the sensible example of the Governor of our state and the Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh and order all non-essential county employees to stay home until the pandemic is under control. Tell them TODAY! Make them do it TODAY!