Gov. Tom Wolf and state Health Secretary Rachel Levine have come in for their share of cheers and jeers for the way they have handled the COVID-19 pandemic response, bu, for the first time, a researcher has attempted to measure the effectiveness of their decisions and edicts.

Saying he doesn’t do politics, researcher Mark Roberts concluded after he led a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in their factfinding quest that he has ``no doubt whatsoever that the social distancing that was put in place in Pennsylvania saved many, many thousands of lives.”

They did this by measuring the impact of closing and reopening schools, offices, restaurants and stores, Roberts said.

More than 8,000 COVID-19 deaths have been confirmed in the state. Without restrictions, the death toll would have likely been several times higher, said Roberts, who is director of the Public Health Dynamics Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. ``It clearly has saved lives, no question at all,’’ he said. ``It’s easy to project that there would be two to three times the deaths, at a minimum, with less social distancing.’’

Researchers said that their model estimated that an average of 50% of Pennsylvanians practiced safe distancing for the first six months of the pandemic. It was higher in March and April and lower since then, they said.

During the nearly seven months that Wolf’s emergency order has been in effect and renewed twice, Republican lawmakers and others have become more critical of the restrictions that they say are hurting small businesses, most notably those in the hospitality industry.

State Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, and State Sen. Mario Scavello, R-Northampton and Monroe, have repeatedly pointed to the entertainment and leisure businesses in the Pocono area as being among the hardest hit in the state.

Their concern is backed up by unemployment rates which are considerably higher in the Poconos and some sections of the Lehigh Valley than the statewide average, which this month dropped from 12.5% to 10.3%. The highest rate during the pandemic was 16.1% in April. Pennsylvania’s lowest unemployment rate in recent history occurred from September 2017 through March 2019 when it was 4.1%.

These local legislators, along with other Republicans and a growing number of Democrats, have attempted to blunt Wolf’s and Levine’s orders through legislation, which the governor has vetoed, and lawsuits.

Roberts’ research model will soon include an economic impact component. ``We want to balance off clinical outcomes and health outcomes with economic outcomes. I’m not saying economic outcomes are not real, of course, they’re real,’’ Roberts said.

In a Sept. 14 ruling in Pittsburgh, U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV declared that the Wolf administration’s ruling limiting indoor and outdoor gatherings and events to 25 and 250 people, respectively, goes against the First Amendment’s freedom of assembly provision. Stickman also determined that Wolf’s stay at home and business restriction orders were unconstitutional. On Sept. 22, Stickman rejected Wolf’s appeal, but a federal appeals court on Sept. 29 issued a stay of Stickman’s order, so the governor’s original directive still stands at 25 and 250. Wolf, however, has signaled that he might allow greater numbers to congregate in one place.

Following the release of Roberts’ research report, but independent of it, a team of Pennsylvania doctors meeting in September via Zoom criticized the federal ruling and commended the governor for his tough stance on the virus, particularly in the early going last spring.

``As physicians, we’re concerned that blind unquestioning loyalty to President Trump by elected officials in Harrisburg is getting in the way of good public health policies,’’ said Dr. Max Cooper, an emergency room physician with Committee to Protect Medicare.

These doctors said they decided to speak up because they feel that the federal ruling is an attack that puts many Pennsylvanians at risk. ``Physicians have a responsibility to speak out when harm is being done, and it is being done right now in Pennsylvania,’’ Cooper said.

Legislators are getting pressure from their constituents to loosen the restrictions to help small businesses, especially those who operate restaurants and bars.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, restaurants employ more than 10 million people nationwide and more than half a million in Pennsylvania.

Wolf recently allowed restaurants which certify that they are following accepted safety precautions for the health and well-being of their patrons to return to 50% from 25% capacity. The tradeoff, however, is that alcohol cannot be served after 11 p.m. nor consumed after midnight. Even this was a one-hour concession, because Wolf originally wanted to turn off the spigot at 10 p.m.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI