ALTOONA, Pa. (WTAJ) — Under Governor Wolf’s plan, Pennsylvania will reopen by region which is different than how it was closed.

Stay at home orders were issued on a county by county basis.

Pennsylvania is split into six health regions.

The Governor’s reopening plan breaks the state into 6 regions.

“The regions that we’re going to be talking about are basically our health regions. And we’ve had them years now and so that’s how we’ll be considering the regions and different metrics,” said PA Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine.

Unfortunately for many, our viewing area is broken into 4 different regions despite a relatively low number of COVID-19 cases.

WTAJ asked Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine if Central PA could instead be grouped together. But her answer, was no.

“People tend to travel and stuff so we really feel that this regional approach is best so we’re using our health regions as the model,” said Dr. Levine.

The Southwest Region consists of 11 counties and includes the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

It’s region has nearly 2,300 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The Southwest Region consists of 11 counties and includes the Pittsburgh metropolitan area as well Cambria and Somerset Counties.

Cambria County and Johnstown are in this region despite only having 20 confirmed cases.

Somerset County is no better off. Its lumped in as well, even though it only has 22 confirmed cases.

In fact, the counties combined have less than 2% of all cases in the region.

Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, has the nearly 1,200 cases.

To the west Blair, Bedford and Huntington Counties are in the Southcentral Region.

Along with Lebanon and York Counties which have far more cases.

Looking at the map, you can clearly see both counties are closer to the greater Philadelphia area and Baltimore than they are to Altoona.

Southcentral Region: Blair and Huntingdon Counties are grouped with York and Lebanon Counties, which are closer to the Philadelphia region.

If you combine all of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Blair, Bedford, and Huntington Counties. It makes up roughly 2.5% of all the cases in the states of the Southcentral Region.

As expected, the number of cases grows with proximity to the Greater Philadelphia Area.

In the Northcentral Region, Centre county may fair better than its neighbors to the south.

In the Northcentral Region, Centre County may open up sooner despite having the most cases in our viewing area.

The Northcentral Region’s 12 counties only have 614 cases. This means, should the number of cases stay low it could open up sooner even though Centre County has 77 cases, which is the most in our area making up nearly 13% of all confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Northcentral Region.

Clearfield, Jefferson, Elk and Cameron Counties, which are in the Northwest Region, have the lowest number of cases in our region.

The four counties combined don’t have 20 confirmed cases.

The entire region only has 251 confirmed cases.

We’ll find out which regions will begin the reopening process May 8th.

WTAJ also asked if the state could consider reopening county by county, to allow those with fewer cases to start opening up. Our question was not answered.