September 25, 2020: COVID-19 Update from the Centre Region Emergency Management Program

Centre Region Specific News:

Centre County: The Department of Health announced a pop up testing site at the Nittany Mall. The site will be located in the Macy's parking lot, facing Route 26 (not the Benner Pike or McDonald's). Residents do not have to be experiencing symptoms to get tested and pre-registration is not required. Insurance is also not needed.You can read more here: https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Public%20Testing.aspx

Data 4 Action Study: The researchers behind the Data 4 Action Study provided an update. 10,000 residents are currently enrolled in the study. They are still accepting residents into the study through the end of September. You can watch their video update here: https://psu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Data4Action+Zoom+Meeting/1_0cxfdy6x

Penn State: University and local government stakeholders will meet on October 5th to discuss strategies to deal with potential fans and tailgaters heading to town for the Ohio State game on October 31st. The strategies to be discussed include proactive messaging and police enforcement.

Penn State: The University partnered with the University Area Joint Authority to collect wastewater samples to track the spread of COVID-19. You can read more here: https://news.psu.edu/story/632398/2020/09/20/research/wastewater-sampling-may-give-advanced-warning-potential-covid-19

State College Area School District: The district will return to in person learning on September 28th. They will begin randomly screening students and employees with temperature checks. The district also plans random weekly COVID-19 testing of its employees. You can read more here: https://www.scasd.org/Page/37975.

News from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

The Department of Health rolled out a new mobile app that helps with contact tracing and with symptom tracking. You can read more here: https://www.pa.gov/covid/covid-alert-pa/

As of September 25th, there are 149,410 cases in PA. 1,816,397 people have tested negative for COVID-19.
As of September 25th, there are 2,165 cases in Centre County. 24,580 people have tested negative for COVID-19.

Resources for Residents:

Residents can get more information on our special COVID-19 website. The site is updated daily by State College Borough. You can find that site here: https://www.statecollegepa.us/coronavirus

Residents can also get information on the Centre Region Ready Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/centreregionready/

State College Borough is maintaining a dashboard by zip code. The dashboard can be found here: https://coronavirus-response-state-college-borough-statecollegepa.hub.arcgis.com/

For questions or more information, please contact Centre Region Public Information Officer Amy Farkas by email at manager@harristownship.org or by phone at 466-6228.