The Pennsylvania House this week passed a proposal to expand public access to reports about COVID-19 and other diseases.

Republicans argued it would help people decide how to react to pandemics and other outbreaks.

The vote, along party lines, amends the Disease Prevention and Control Law, supplanting an existing section on the confidentiality of reports and records with direction that any records “maintained as a result of any action taken in consequence of such reports or any other records maintained” under the law would instead be subject to the Right-to-Know Law.

Supporters said some information about the coronavirus pandemic has been difficult to obtain, and that privacy protections in state and federal law would limit disclosure to aggregate data that cannot be linked to an individual.

The bill, argued Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, “would allow us as consumers, as residents, as patients, to have access to good data so we can make good decisions.”

He says the sort of data the bill might produce includes vaccination and infection rates by school district.

Gov. Tom Wolf's press secretary, Lyndsay Kensinger, said the Democratic administration opposes the bill, noting the legislation does not expressly limit the release of personal medical information to aggregate data.

“In its current form it allows for the public release of personally identifiable medical records and would make public every report of disease,” Kensinger said.

This is not the first time the Wolf administration has fought to keep access to COVID-19 reports from the public.

In August 2020, Wolf said legislation unanimously approved by both the House and Senate to require that state government agencies continue processing public records requests during disasters was “ill-conceived and poorly drafted,” but he let it become law without his signature.

The bill requires state agencies to follow Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law during declared emergencies, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans in the Legislature have complained bitterly for months that Wolf has shielded important information about his administration's decision-making while responding to the public health crisis.

Times of crisis call for total transparency. That builds confidence in government for all of the state's citizens.

— JGG