A prayer vigil is planned at 6 p.m. Friday outside the Westmoreland County Courthouse to remember county residents who died from covid-19 and to honor front line workers in the pandemic.

“Too many in our community were suffering before the pandemic, and now our needs are even more urgent,” said Bob Mason of Voice of Westmoreland, a local activist group that is organizing the event. “Our workers and our neighbors deserve true covid relief and recovery. We must invest in a future that lifts up communities that have been most impacted by the covid-19 crisis.”

More than 1,100 Westmoreland residents have died from covid — among 38,767 deaths thus far in Pennsylvania that have been attributed to the pandemic, according to the state Department of Health. The state has surpassed 2 million confirmed covid cases, including more than 69,000 in the county.

“One death is one too many,” said Mason.

During the vigil, a bell will be rung in memory of those lost to covid while photos and personal stories will be shared.

Ronel Baccus of Greensburg, organizer of recent Unity in the Community events in the city, plans to attend on behalf of her brother, Ronald DeVaughn, who succumbed in October while battling covid.

Baccus believes her brother, who had underlying health problems, waited too long to get vaccinated against covid and ended up in the hospital soon after getting his first Pfizer shot.

“He was on a ventilator and they had to put him in a coma,” Baccus said of her brother. “His heart stopped and he went into cardiac arrest. He was going to be 50.”

Baccus and her sister have both been vaccinated, and she urged others who have not done so to get covid shots.

“My whole family has underlying health problems,” she said. “We all have bad hearts and we all have respiratory problems.”

Dr. Carol Fox, chief medical officer at Excela Health, is slated to speak at the vigil, to express gratitude for caregivers and remember those claimed by covid.

The United Homecare Workers Union, Greensburg-Jeannette NAACP and Neighborhood Resilience Project/Familia & Comunidad Westmoreland are 0ther organizations expected to participate.

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