COVID 5 years later: Looking back at pandemic’s impact in Butler County
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Karen Rich, Butler Memorial Hospital's first COVID-19 ICU patient to be treated with a ventilator, leaves the hospital April 14, 2020.Submitted photoThis is a larger resolution photo sent to us FEb. 14, 2025, for an A250 photo spread.
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UPMC staff member Denise Bosilovich checks in on a COVID vaccine recipient at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex Wednesday. UPMC hosted a drive-thru Moderna shot vaccination clinic.
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A year after their rooftop birthday tailgate, the family of Emmett McGarvey(center) got together at Butler Memorial Hospital to recount the event. Due to COVID precautions the family had a sort of tailgate while Megan Mcgarvey and Evan McGarvey were in the hospital for the delivery. The family discovered his gender from a sign in the window.Left to right: Father Evan McGarvey, Emmett McGarvey, mother Megan McGarvey, grandparents Brian and Diane McGarvey. Seb Foltz/Butler EagleLeft to right
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The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank held a food distribution event at the Big Butler Fairgrounds on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. Harold Aughton/Butler Eagle
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Wilhelmina “Willy” and Frank Peluso on their honeymoon in Paris in September 1945.
On March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the coronavirus quickly sweeping the United States and the globe.
It has been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic effectively halted our lives, including in Butler County. Schools adopted virtual learning, the terms “work from home,” “social distancing” and “flatten the curve” entered our vocabularies, sports were canceled and outdoor dining and contactless delivery allowed people to eat from their favorite restaurants in safer ways.
The emergence of the virus and its impact is still being felt five years later. With the anniversary upon us, the Butler Eagle is looking back at the coronavirus pandemic and it’s impact on the region.
Check this page regularly this week for our latest coverage and stories on the community and how it’s continuing to recover.
Shutdown coverage was hard. Stigmas around contracting the virus made talking to people difficult. So, I settled for the easy information — the numbers.
I tracked the data supplied by the Pennsylvania Department of Health on a spreadsheet. At times, during news conferences I had to call out its discrepancies, until I stopped getting called on. Then, I looked at other ways to show the pandemic’s effects on our community.
When the dust settled, Butler County saw 55,929 positive cases of COVID-19, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, as of June 2023 — when the state stopped collecting data on the virus. Of those cases, 854 people died, making for a fatality rate of 1.53%.
During the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and its heightened health and safety restrictions in early May, Megan McGarvey gave birth to a son — Emmett Michael McGarvey — whose first moments in the world were just as unique as they were memorable.
“Business as usual.” That is how Owen Blazer described his experience on the morning of March 12, 2020.
Then a senior swimmer for Seneca Valley, Blazer had just placed third in the PIAA Class 3A boys 100-yard backstroke preliminary heats, an effort which guaranteed him a spot in that night’s championship final at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium.
Wilhelmina “Willy” Peluso survived the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and breast cancer, but like millions of Americans, the coronavirus was too much for her.
Peluso, who died at 96 in April 2020, was only the fourth Butler County resident to die as a result of the virus that had just made its way to the county. COVID-19 had been officially been declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization the previous month.
It was an ordinary work week in 2020 for the employees of Community Partnership, a Butler County nonprofit focused on food insecurity. Until it wasn’t.
Five years after the pandemic disrupted communities, nonprofit food pantries around Butler County are continuing to grapple with challenges consistently highlighted during that time span.
Look back on what the experience was for those who lost loved ones, those who grew their families and others in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic with articles to come this week.
