Furthering his plan for reopening Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf announced May 22 eight additional counties will move to yellow and 17 will move to green, effective 12:01 a.m., May 29.

All remaining counties in red - of which Northampton and Lehigh are a part - are expected to move to yellow by 12:01 a.m. June 5.

The counties moving to yellow May 29 include Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Lebanon, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike and Schuylkill.

The 17 counties moving to green May 29, include Bradford, Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Montour, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Venango and Warren.

Counties that remain in red May 29 and are expected to move to yellow by June 5 include Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Northampton, Montgomery and Philadelphia.

“We know not only that we succeeded in slowing case growth, but that our actions, our collective decisions to stay at home and avoid social contact - we know that saved lives,” Wolf said. “My stay-at-home order did exactly what it was intended to do: It saved lives and it bought us valuable time.”

Wolf referred to a study by Drexel University that indicates in Philadelphia alone, 60 days of staying at home resulted in more than 7,000 lives saved and prevented more than 68,000 people from needing hospitalization.

In deciding which counties to move to yellow, the state used risk-based metrics from Carnegie Mellon University combined with contact tracing and testing capability and a sustained reduction in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Over the past two weeks:

The state has seen sustained reductions in hospitalizations. From May 8, when the first counties moved to yellow, to May 22, the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized dropped by nearly 1,000 - from 2,618 to 1,667.

The number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators shrank by about a third, from 505 to 347.

New cases continue to decline. From May 8 to May 15, the state added 6,384 cases and, from May 15 to 21, added 4,770.

The current COVID-19 incidence rate in the state is 83.4 cases per 100,000 people. Two weeks ago, it was 113.6 per 100,000.

Most other states are seeing the new case rate continue to increase or remain flat. Pennsylvania is one of just 19 states with new case-rate declines, it was reported.