Laurels & lances: Bunny, bottles, breakdown

Tribune-Review | Thursday, April 9, 2020 4:36 p.m.

Shane Dunlap | Tribune-Review

Laurel Liprando, 2, sits on the lap of her father, Greg Liprando, while holding a stuffed Easter bunny she received Wednesday from volunteers in South Greensburg.

Laurel: To a bunny’s best helpers. Easter is one of those milestone holidays for many kids, like Christmas or birthdays. For some, it could be hard to reconcile a quarantine celebration without egg hunts and family parties.

But volunteers in South Greensburg helped the Easter bunny out by making sure kids had a little something special. If the kids couldn’t come to the egg hunt, they helped the bunny hunt out the kids to hand the eggs over in person — complete with police and firefighter escorts.

That might seem like a small gesture, but someday one of those kids will remember when the bunny came with a firetruck and forget all the tension of a quarantine.

Lance: To no cheers. Maybe a glass of wine with dinner or a margarita on the deck isn’t as essential as a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs during the coronavirus pandemic, but it is a ritual that helps many people hold on to normal at a time when normal seems in short supply.

So why does the state have to make social distancing all the harder by making social drinking harder, too?

The state could find a way to make wine and liquor sales easier. Yes, after shutting down the state-owned stores, Gov. Tom Wolf did note the steep drop in revenue. Online sales are happening, but they are happening badly.

True, the beer distributors are open. Sheetz, Giant Eagle and other venues sell wine and beer. And the PLCB has become significantly more consumer-friendly over the decades. But the retail shutdown illustrates that the state’s almost total dominance of sales gives it an amount of control that some authoritarian governments enjoy.

Lance: To keeping information under wraps. In a state of emergency, we need more information, not less.

Pennsylvania needs to look at freeing up more of the information, not just for the people but for the counties and municipalities. There is a way to balance what is helpful and what isn’t, as well as the kind of privacy protections provided by federal laws like HIPAA and the local and demographic breakdowns that could help people understand and make choices in a situation like an epidemic.

Other states walk this line. Pennsylvania can, too.