The Hospital Emergency Loan Program, an effort to provide short-term financial relief to hospitals, is expected to help ensure they have sufficient personnel, equipment and personal protective equipment.

St. Luke’s University Health Network is providing free cafeteria meals to employees during the COVID-19 public health crisis. In addition, SLUHN started a “Feeding the Frontlines” fundraising campaign to purchase restaurant gift cards for staff.

In an effort to provide small businesses faced with the imminent prospect of bankruptcy due to COVID-19, lenders hurried to comply with incoming guidelines from the Small Business Administration that qualify them to make federally-guaranteed loans to small businesses, to the extent that 75% of those funds are used to keep workers on payroll and 25% on overhead costs.

The GIANT Co. of Carlisle has established a $250,000 emergency fund to help support small businesses in Pennsylvania’s food supply chain that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

HARRISBURG — The coronavirus outbreak could cost Pennsylvania $2.7 billion in lost tax revenue over the next 15 months, blowing a serious hole in the state budget, according to a report released Wednesday by the state’s Independent Fiscal Office.

Kevin Johnson, owner of JMW Fabrication, has created a simple device that can be attached to most standard commercial door handles, allowing people to open the door using their arm or wrist instead of their hands.

HARRISBURG — Until late last week, Dr. Christina VandePol, the coroner in Chester County, said, she had to turn to local hospitals if she wanted to test a deceased person for the coronavirus. Since then, she said, she’s received 20 tests from the state’s lab, in two batches. For a county with over 400 cases ...

FirstEnergy Corp., an electric utility company that services Pennsylvania, is offering financial assistance to its customers who need help paying their electric bills due to the coronavirus crisis. The Ohio-based company provides electricity service to Pennsylvanians through its subsidiaries Met-Ed, Penelec, West Penn Power and Pennsylvania Power.

Creditsafe USA, an Allentown-based company that provides company credit reports for businesses throughout the globe, has now created a COVID-19 Impact Score. The new scoring system is free and designed to help businesses identify the risks the coronavirus epidemic poses to their bottom line.

The term and its potential impact in contracts are being scrutinized due to business interruptions and shutdowns caused by coronavirus, or Covid-19. In Pennsylvania mandatory shutdowns ordered by Gov. Tom Wolf in March have rendered many everyday business practices illegal.