When some Pennsylvanians refused to let public health officials enter their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state’s Department of Health took notice. As governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro worked to ensure that could never happen again.
Pennsylvania Department of Health staff said during a July 2025 meeting of the state’s Advisory Health Board that “strong” changes to the state’s health code were needed to stop citizens from resisting future disease control measures, a transcript of the meeting obtained by The Daily Wire revealed.
Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Jesse Topper said the regulatory proposal was “reminiscent of COVID lockdown-era government policy that would infringe upon constitutional norms and civil liberties” in an August 26 letter opposing the changes.
The Advisory Health Board unanimously voted in favor of the sweeping proposal, which handed state officials access to confidential medical records, authority to have private health conversations with students while at school, and the power to enter homes without a warrant.
“The reason why we’re adding this in more strong wording is because people refused to allow the Department of Health to enter their residences in the past,” stated Theresa Kash, a Department of Health policy specialist, after giving a presentation on the proposal.
Neil Mahalingam, assistant chief counsel for the Department of Health, said the regulatory changes gave the agency the authority to access “basically any property.”
“We provide more specific language in there, where it provides a general basis for the department to do investigations and to access a variety of properties, basically any property to complete the investigation,” Mahalingam stated at the meeting.
Screenshot of a transcript from a July 17, 2025, meeting of the Pennsylvania Advisory Health Board.
The proposal, which was withdrawn on September 25, would have also given the Department of Health unfettered power to enter schools and have private conversations with students while explicitly prohibiting school employees from interfering with the disease investigation if finalized.
Kash explained during the July 2025 meeting that schools had previously tried to “obstruct” disease investigations and the change would provide “clear expectations for schools.”
“This sets clear expectations for schools, requiring them to provide reasonable access for contact tracing efforts and ensure private meetings can occur with affected individuals,” Kash explained. “This language reinforces particular requirements for schools as children are a vulnerable population. And we need to ensure the department may enter the school and that the school cannot obstruct the conducting of contact tracing or partner services, which has happened in the past.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen, chair of the Advisory Health Board, led the July 2025 meeting, which was attended by staff of the Department of Health policy office and legal team. Kash gave a presentation on the regulatory proposal, followed by a brief question-and-answer session before the board voted unanimously in favor of the sweeping regulatory changes. The proposal was then sent to Shapiro’s office for review and approval, according to the meeting transcript.
“We have a unanimous vote to move the Chapter 27 Regulations forward to the Governor’s Office and the next step in our review process,” Bogen stated after the board vote.
The Daily Wire asked Shapiro’s office to comment on the role it played in shaping the regulatory proposal.
“Regulatory review is an extensive process and nearly 200 regulatory packages across state agencies are currently undergoing updates,” Rosie Lapowsky, a Shapiro spokeswoman, told The Daily Wire. “These Department of Health regulation proposals were withdrawn after we received a historically high volume of feedback during the public comment period.”
“The Governor’s philosophy, which will guide the final regulations, is that public health depends on trust, and building that trust means respecting individual rights, involving parents in decisions that affect their children, and ensuring government works closely with the people it serves,” Lapowsky added.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health received more than 10,000 comments opposing the health code changes following a Daily Wire report. Many public comments expressed concerns that the health code changes would give the Shapiro administration power to impose draconian health restrictions reminiscent of the COVID-19 era. Pennsylvanians passed a constitutional amendment in May 2021 that limited the governor’s emergency powers to three weeks to ensure no future leader would have authoritarian health powers.
Democrats and the Shapiro administration publicly defended the proposal during its 45-day public comment period, labeling criticisms as “misinformation” and “disingenuous.”
“Republicans are seizing on this opportunity to jump to extreme conclusions and spread misinformation and fear,” a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Democrat Rep. Matt Bradford, told the MonValley Independent. “No new authority is created in this proposal; it simply clarifies existing authority.”
“Any misconstruing of these proposed changes designed to scare Pennsylvanians is inaccurate and disingenuous,” Pennsylvania Department of Health Communications Director Barry Ciccocioppo told a local news outlet on August 28.
Secretary Bogen announced the department was withdrawing the proposal in a September 25 letter, but said the department intends to “resubmit it as a new proposed rulemaking at a future date.”
A May 2024 meeting agenda shows the PA DOH allotted just 10 minutes for feedback and discussion.
“Because DOH received a historically high volume of feedback during the public comment period, it was clear additional stakeholder input was needed. In order to incorporate that feedback, the department made the decision to withdraw the proposed updates to the Chapter 27 regulations,” Pennsylvania DOH spokesperson Neil Ruhland told The Daily Wire. “The department plans to file revised language once Pennsylvanians’ feedback has been adequately incorporated into the draft regulations.”
Pennsylvania Department of Health officials said during the July 2025 meeting that they had “spoken with and presented information to multiple stakeholders” while crafting the proposal to ensure the regulatory proposal was “robust, clear, and forward-thinking.” (transcript p. 26)
A group of 85 lawmakers said they did not have an opportunity to provide input or review the regulation until it was announced to the general public in August 2026.
“This proposal which seeks unprecedented authority by the department, we assert that this regulation is substantial and requires legislative review,” wrote the legislators in a letter to Pennsylvania’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission. “We were not invited to discuss this proposal over the last two years as the department was conducting stakeholder meetings. We were not given a chance to weigh in or make suggestions prior to the proposal being published as stakeholder groups were able to do.”
Multiple stakeholders, including “academia and advocacy groups,” were given the opportunity to provide input on the regulatory proposal during the summer of 2024, according to the July 2025 Advisory Health Board meeting transcript.
“We held four stakeholder engagement sessions last July and August to obtain feedback from multiple stakeholders. Each session lasted about an hour, with some taking longer,” stated Kash. “Attendees included participants from the fields of infection prevention to hospital management; industry; academia and advocacy groups; Community Health Centers; the Philadelphia Department of Public Health; Patient Safety Authority; Counties; Departments of Human Services; Hospital Association of PA; [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]; Lehigh Valley Health Network; PA Medical Society, and many more.”
Screenshot of a public record obtained by The Daily Wire.
Leadership from Pennsylvania’s 11 county and municipal health departments discussed the regulatory proposal with the state Department of Health during a monthly leadership call on May 10, 2024. This was the first “stakeholder” meeting held by the department, according to public record emails. An agenda from the May meeting shows the department gave a 30-minute presentation on the regulatory changes and allotted just 10 minutes for feedback and discussion.
“While a few things looked like improvements, some stuff does not look terrific. We need to see more,” Dr. David Damsker, Bucks County health director, wrote to public health colleagues following the meeting. Damsker suggested in the May 2024 emails that the changes may have been motivated by the outcome of Corman v. Acting Secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Health, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled a mask mandate created by the Pennsylvania DOH in August 2021 was illegal. The court noted in its opinion that the power of the Pennsylvania Department of Health was limited by regulatory language that only allowed it to implement disease control measures “for the surveillance of disease.”
The Shapiro administration cited the Corman lawsuit as having “influenced” the department’s proposal to add the terms prevention, containment, or mitigation “as justifications for the implementation of all disease control measures available to the department under the Disease Prevention and Control Law.”
“The department proposes to update the language authorizing the department to enact disease-control measures, adding the terms prevention, containment, or mitigation, to reflect current public health strategies,” Kash said during the July 2025 Advisory Health Board Meeting. “This broadens the department’s ability to intervene in various types of public health threats. The current language limits our ability to engage in disease-control measures only through surveillance.”
Damsker raised concerns to the Pennsylvania Department of Health that adding “prevention, containment or mitigation” to the health code would give the department “a lot of power,” in a document obtained by The Daily Wire through a public records request.
“Dr. Damsker from Bucks County has concerns that having ‘prevention, containment, or mitigation’ would give DOH a lot of power that could be used negatively,” states the document. The Pennsylvania DOH responded, “We are relaying this information to program staff. Please provide written feedback when you review the regulations during the formal comment period.”
Damsker did not respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.
“The withdrawn proposed regulations did not seek to create new legal authority for PA DOH to enter private residences but rather clarified the department’s existing statutory authority and current Chapter 27 regulations,” Pennsylvania DOH spokesperson Neil Ruhland told The Daily Wire.
“The proposed regulations sought to modernize decades-old policy to better support evolving public health needs and manage dangerous diseases, like allowing information to be submitted online, removing duplicative reporting requirements for certain professions, and making simple formatting changes to improve readability and reduce confusion about reportable diseases, infections, and conditions.”
.png)
.png)
