St. Pete City Council member Robert Blackmon shares phased reopening plan

City Council member Robert Blackmon took to Facebook Wednesday to preview his thoughts on a plan for reopening the St. Petersburg economy prior to the City Council Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for Thursday on the subject.

Council member Robert Blackmon

Blackmon, who was elected in November to represent District 1, describes a phased approached to reopening essential and non-essential businesses to the public, as well as “trigger points” that would advance the phases or reverse the phases. Among the “trigger points” for advancement would be a 14-day window of time, decreasing or leveling number of daily cases, hospital occupancy rates, universal testing for frontline healthcare workers and first responders, as well as on demand testing for the public. New phases would also require less than 10 percent of Covid-19 test results coming back positive in the last 14 days. In Pinellas County, the rate has hovered around 5 percent.

Phase reversals would be triggered by positive tests of healthcare workers exceeding 20 percent or more than 20 percent of total Covid-19 results coming back positive, reaching or exceeding 100 percent occupancy of ICU beds in Pinellas County, or an increase of three times the number of reported cases week-over-week.

To read through Blackmon’s full proposal, click “See More” on his Facebook post embedded below.

City Council will meet as the Committee of the Whole Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to discuss St. Pete’s reopening.