Pittsburgh area organizations have taken precautionary measures as the coronavirus spreads, and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey says emergency funds need more support. The Allegheny County Health Department has a new director, Dr. Debra Bogen, a pediatrician from UPMC Children's hospital. And, how will voters respond to a future Democratic presidential candidate’s stance on fracking?
Helping explain the headlines this week from the WESA newsroom with fill-in host Chris Potter:
- Reid Frazier, environment and energy reporter for The Allegheny Front and StateImpact Pennsylvania
- Sarah Boden, health and science reporter
- Lucy Perkins, government and accountability reporter
Though it's possible that coronavirus is circulating undetected in western Pennsylvania, the region’s largest health care system said on Tuesday that it hasn’t needed to test any patients at its facilities for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
“We remain vigilant,” said UPMC emergency medicine physician, Dr. Donald Yealy. “We are proactively trying to find cases. We’re not waiting for them to become one in front of us and become obvious.”
There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania, though the state Department of Health warns it poses a “serious risk” to the public. Meanwhile, DemocraticU.S. Sen. Bob Casey accused President Trump of not taking the outbreak seriously.
“[Elected officials] shouldn’t purposefully or intentionally give inaccurate information, and shouldn’t try to spin this so it helps someone politically,” Casey said. “The President has to do a much better job in giving accurate information all the time. I think it’d be better if he did very little talking and if he let the experts – the scientists and the professionals – do the talking with the American people.”
Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders has said he wants to move away from fossil fuels, and supports a ban on fracking for natural gas or oil. Though natural gas is pushing dirtier coal off the electric grid, scientists warn we need to phase out all carbon emissions from fossil fuels in the next few decades.
Experts doubt a president could simply ban fracking without congressional approval. And, some political observers think an anti-fracking message could hurt a candidate in Pennsylvania, where 30,000 people work in oil and gas, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and thousands more work in related industries.
"In other news"
- From Radiolab: "The Other Latif"
- From NPR: Coronavirus Fears Have Led To A Golden Age Of Hand-Washing PSAs
- "Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History" by Matthieu Auzanneau
Pittsburgh Explainer is hosted by Liz Reid and produced by Katie Blackley. New episodes come out every Friday. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify.
