Free Republic

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on one of the most divisive issues facing the state at the moment – the state-imposed mandate that children must wear face masks while in school to protect against COVID-19. Yet the nearly hour-long session in Philadelphia wasn’t really about the virus or controlling its spread or whether wearing those masks is an effective response to the pandemic. Instead, the arguments centered on whether the state’s Acting Secretary of Health, Alison Beam, had the legal authority to issue the mask mandate. As Justice Debra Todd observed, the high court was being tasked with conducting...

There is a new date for the end of Pennsylvania’s school mask mandate, and it is Dec. 4. In a follow-up opinion issued Tuesday, Commonwealth Court Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon ordered the end of the mandate effective Dec. 4. Cannon’s order reversed an earlier stay that would have kept the school masking mandate in place as long as Gov. Tom Wolf’s appeal of the court’s initial Nov. 10 order lifting its mask rule was on appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The appeal is still pending before the high court, but plaintiffs in the case had asked for the automatic...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An order by Pennsylvania’s acting health secretary that requires masks inside K-12 schools and child care facilities was thrown out Wednesday by a state court that said she lacked the authority. Commonwealth Court sided 4-1 with the ranking Republican in the state Senate and others who sued to challenge the masking order that took effect in early September as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The judges said Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam’s mandate did not comply with the state’s laws about reviewing and approving regulations and was adopted without an existing disaster emergency declared by...

Pennsylvania’s top COVID-19 vaccination official on Thursday said the state has begun examining how quickly providers are getting doses into peoples’ arms and will begin to favor those that do better. “We’re narrowing in on a strategy that will allocate this vaccine to providers that really rewards those that can do it efficiently, do it effectively, meaning getting that second dose in there, and then report back to us as quickly as possible so we can get an understanding of the data,” said Alison Beam, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of health. Beam testified before a Republican-led state Senate committee on Thursday,...