Mike Pipe had a nuanced answer when asked why he requested Centre County stay in the yellow phase, but it largely focused on the primary election (scheduled for June 2) as a "community spread" event.

He asked for Centre County to move to the green phase on June 5.

Pipe: "One of the concerns that I had was that if we would ease this right before the election, and potentially get a poll worker or a voter ... exposed to COVID-19, that would be putting others in harm's way."

Pipe: "If we did not have a primary election day on June 2, I would've supported the governor's recommendation. But the challenge was, we're gonna have four potential days of spreading the virus."

Pipe: "I am constantly ... getting calls from local businesses. I didn't make this decision knowing that there wasn't going to be another seven days of sacrifice that local business were going to make. My concern is that we don't jump back into the yellow phase."

Pipe: "By waiting until after the primary, that will allow us to have a greater timeframe for staying in the green."

One other factor: Centre County would've been the only fourth-class county (those with a population of 145,000 to 209,999) to move to the green phase.

Some counties moving to green have fewer than 10,000 residents. Centre County has about 162,000.

This thread is already too long, but here was my general takeaway from Pipe's thoughts:

Waiting one more week to move to green outweighed a potential increase in COVID-19 cases because of the election.