Spurred by the state Senate's final approval on a bill to allow many businesses to reopen after forced closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, people from across the state plan on rallying Monday at the state's capitol in support of the effort.

Action in the state Senate came Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump, pressing to restart the damaged United States economy, gave governors a road map for economic recovery.

Gov. Tom Wolf indicated that he would veto the bill but as of Friday afternoon hadn't done so. The law would overrule Wolf's order to close certain nonessential businesses.

State Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-10th, whose district includes Slippery Rock, is among organizers of the rally “Stand Up to End the Shutdown Pennsylvania” that invites citizens to join at noon to rally for the cause.

Wolf didn't indicate a timeline on when he would lift coronavirus restrictions during his news conference Friday. New data Thursday showed the United States has lost 22 million jobs in the last four weeks.

Winifred Mary Quinn, 52, who lives on North Duffy Road, said she plans on attending the rally after hearing about it recently from one of the groups, ReOpen PA, on Facebook.

She goes for therapy at the Abie Abraham Department of Veterans Affairs Health Center and also needs to get her eyes checked; neither can be done with the stay-at-home restrictions. Quinn believes the state, and country, should have fully opened several weeks ago.

“I'm sick of the political games that are being played. We don't have a government anymore. We have two parties and the Democrats right now are doing everything in their power to make (President Donald Trump) look bad,” Quinn said. “And they just try to go against anything (Trump) proposes.”

Quinn worked as a mental health counselor before her semi-retirement.

“I think that the government needs to get together and come up with a good solution. I think most places could reopen now with cleaning and following better hygiene practices,” Quinn said. “We need the economy opened. We're not going to be able to sustain the unemployment benefits.”

She believes political calculations are guiding government policy.

“I feel personally they're trying to crash the economy. They're inflating the numbers with virus. They're saying anybody who dies with COVID-19 died from it,” Quinn said. “In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing it to get federal funding. Our Gov. Wolf is doing that as well.”

The group that Quinn is part of started five days ago and it now has more than 31,000 members as of Friday afternoon, according to Matthew Bellis, a Lancaster County resident who is an administrator of the Facebook page.

“We've seen an explosion of popularity in a short amount of time around the idea that we need to reopen Pennsylvania,” Bellis said.

He added that the group is not an official organization and it was created by his friend to attract like-minded people. He and others in the group plan on attending the rally.

Bernstine said the government could open in increments, first by opening up businesses that would be able to easily observe physical distancing practices.

“We're asking Pennsylvanians to operate under federal guidelines to protect their lives and livelihoods at the same time,” Bernstine said. “There's a lot of businesses that could operate safely, like bricklayers. There's no reason those people can't operate in a safe manner.

“There's an opportunity to make sure we're doing the best for Pennsylvania.”

Bernstine said the government's mandate to shut down the majority of businesses was too heavy handed and urged the state's government to use updated federal guidelines over state guidelines.

“No doubt there are different needs for inner city Philadelphia than rural Pennsylvania. So we need to do things that makes common sense across the board,” he said.

Jim Panei, president of UAW Local 3303, which represents AK Steel Butler workers, said they aren't getting involved in the rally because they have been working through the government shutdown and are considered a national security business.

“I think they should start putting plans to get things opening up slowly,” Panei said. “It's time to start looking at opening the businesses and getting back to normalcy but I don't think we could just go into full normal right away. We'd be in a lot of hurt. The virus would reinfect.

“We're so close so I don't want to fall back,” he said. “Stay as safe as can be and let's start getting back to little bit of normalcy.”