Bucks Co. Officials Urge COVID Caution At Christmas

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County health and government officials on Friday urged residents to make good choices at Christmas to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

At a news conference, Dr. David Damsker, director of the Bucks County Department of Health, urged families to observe Christmas and other winter holidays among themselves and not travel or gather in large groups.

"When you bring in people outside your bubble, you're increasing the risk," Damsker said. "You're going to get COVID, most likely, from people you know — not from the stranger in Giant. Not from the person you walk past. It's when you take your mask off and you let your guard down."

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Churches were not included in a list of businesses required to curb activities in a set of COVID restrictions issued by Gov. Tom Wolf last week, as new case numbers hit record highs in Pennsylvania. Bucks officials urged anyone planning to attend Christmas services to do so safely.

"COVID doesn't really distinguish between a church service and a Phillies game," Damsker said. "While there is religious freedom in this country, COVID doesn't distinguish."

He urged people in churches to not sing or keep distance and wear masks when they do and sit as far away from other families as possible and churches planning on holding in-person services to look closely at capacity and consider limiting the number of attendees allowed.

"Just because someone's allowed to do something doesn't mean they shouldn't follow all the rules to contain spread," Damsker said.

Dr. Gerald Wydro is chairman of emergency medicine at Jefferson Health Northeast. He, too, urged caution at Christmas, recounting personal stories of whole families wiped out by the coronavirus and grandparents dying alone during the pandemic.

"We saw a huge bump after Thanksgiving," Wydro said. "It just went up very, very rapidly. With Christmas and New Year's coming ... if there's a lack of mitigation on that side, it's not too long before we'll see a big bump again."

Diane Ellis-Marseglia, chairwoman of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, asked the public to think of others when making their Christmas plans.

"This is, of course, difficult for everybody — all the people who lost family, all the people who are struggling with illness," she said. "I think the best thing we can do for one another is to not spend time with one another. To do anything else is kind of selfish.

"This is a year we're going to be telling children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren about."

Friday's news conference came as the first COVID-19 vaccines were arriving, and being administered, at Bucks County hospitals. Officials said the rollout of that vaccine, which will take months, offers some hope.

"I think it's the light at the end of the tunnel, this vaccine, for us to get back to some sense of normalcy," said Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo.