Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Here’s the new hospital inside Temple’s arena; Pa. shutdown to remain indefinitely | Morning Newsletter

Plus, doctors with coronavirus can still help their patients.

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

How long is Pennsylvania’s shutdown of schools and nonessential businesses going to last? As of now, indefinitely, Gov. Tom Wolf said. And his stay-at-home order that now affects 26 counties will remain in place until at least April 30. Also, my colleagues have been tracking the spread of the pandemic in our region since March 6. You can see where the numbers stand for confirmed cases in nine counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

— Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

There’s no hardwood, at least not right now. Below the banners touting basketball championships, the floor of the Liacouras Center is lined with hospital cots. This weekend, members of a federal disaster response team set up beds inside Temple’s campus arena, transforming it into a field hospital.

But, officials say they hope the site never has to be used to treat patients. In case a surge of coronavirus cases hits Philadelphia hospitals in the coming weeks, the arena has beds for at least 200 — whether for COVID-19 patients or others needing hospital care is still unclear.

The Liacouras Center was repurposed days after the city said negotiations failed to re-open Hahnemann University Hospital for quarantine space. Mayor Jim Kenney accused site owner Joel Freedman of “trying to make a buck” off the crisis after he said he would rent the building to the city for nearly $1 million a month, causing public backlash including having his Rittenhouse home vandalized.

📸PHOTOS: Here’s what it looks like inside the arena. And, here’s our weekly gallery of how the region is coping with the spread of the coronavirus.

Appointment requests for video “visits” with doctors have exploded in the past week, my colleague Lisa Gartner reports. Patients are trying to seek answers to their coronavirus questions while hoping to avoid places like emergency rooms where they could encounter the virus. And clinicians who can’t be on the front lines, including those who have been exposed to the coronavirus, are still able to help by taking calls.

In the region, Penn Medicine’s virtual service has increased by 10 times while Jefferson’s daily “walk-in” telemedicine jumped from 20 to 200 visits. Their scheduled online appointments ballooned from 50 each to 2,200 and that’s still growing each day.

Like thousands of child-care providers and workers in the region, Mary Graham is teetering. She’s terrified that the day-care center she runs won’t survive the pandemic.

"Nobody is sleeping,” said Graham, the executive director of Children’s Village, which cares for 425 children at Eighth and Arch Streets. “Can we survive a couple of weeks? Yes. But we can’t do this for months. The system couldn’t survive that.”

In Pennsylvania, child-care facilities have been closed since March 16 and New Jersey day cares must close by tomorrow. Enrollment is plunging, and already thin margins are becoming razor-sharp, with many providers saying they couldn’t survive a closure of more than two weeks without significant support. One day-care owner in Northeast Philly laid off 100 people earlier this month.

What you need to know today

  1. The Inquirer has a new online tool that analyzes over 3,000 college degree programs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The main question: Does that degree pay?

  2. Instacart workers are striking because of working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s unlike any strike you’ve seen before.

  3. Due to the coronavirus, Philadelphia’s police union has agreed to a one-year contract extension.

  4. The ACLU warned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of an “impending viral explosion” in county jails.

  5. A Philly woman was in prison for life. Villanova students, and one weird coincidence, helped get her out.

  6. Pennsylvania has declared syringe exchanges to be “life-sustaining” during the state’s coronavirus shutdown. And that’s raising hopes for eventual legalization.

Through your eyes | #OurPhilly

Whoa, spooky. Thanks for the shot, @matthewscottbarber.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!

That’s interesting

  1. 😷The risk of getting the coronavirus from food delivery or mail is tiny. And you can make it even smaller.

  2. 💰The William Penn Foundation has fast-tracked and added a total of $11.6 million to help arts groups and early childhood education and care.

  3. 🏆Can the Eagles build for the future around Carson Wentz and still contend for a Super Bowl?

  4. 👩🏻‍✈️After 39 years and more than 30,000 hours in the air, a pioneering female pilot retired after her final landing at Philadelphia International Airport.

  5. 🌲One Poconos county is a “hot zone” for the coronavirus because of New York City commuters.

  6. 🏟️Citizens Bank Park was supposed to be filled with fans as the baseball season got underway. Instead, it has “become a haunting sight,” writes columnist David Murphy.

Opinions

“As clinicians, we always focus on the patients in greatest immediate need, which in this current crisis would seem to be COVID patients. But we must not lose sight of the tens of millions of other patients who also need our assistance now.” — writes Pat A. Basu, the president and CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America Global Inc., about how specialty hospitals can help handle non-coronavirus patients through partnership.

  1. “If you see me, please do me a favor and step aside,” writes columnist Jenice Armstrong. Sure, it might seem rude, she adds. But it’s necessary.

  2. Coronavirus cartoons: Artists from around the country share their takes on the stimulus package and President Donald Trump’s daily briefings.

What we’re reading

  1. Some Philly educators aren’t so sure that distributing 50,000 laptops is such a good idea, WHYY reports.

  2. Yesterday’s episode of the New York Times’ daily podcast focused on the medical professional who was the first confirmed coronavirus patient in New Jersey.

  3. Is it possible to run 26.2 miles in under two hours? Eliud Kipchoge proved it was. GQ went to his Kenyan training ground to meet the man who did what no one else had done before.

Your Daily Dose of | ‘Stoop singing’

About 25 neighbors (that doesn’t include their dogs) came outside on the 2200 block of St. James Place in Philly for socially distanced “stoop singing.” My colleague Tom Gralish was there to capture it.

You can watch more of my colleagues’ videos on The Inquirer’s YouTube channel.