- The Washington Times - Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will require the state’s residents to wear face coverings when they are in stores or riding public transportation in a new effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The executive order begins Saturday, although some counties, including Montgomery, Prince George’s and Anne Arundel, have already announced similar requirements.

Still, Mr. Hogan said he has seen “positive signs of cautious optimism” and discussed the state’s plans for the recovery phase of the pandemic for the first time Wednesday.

“Fortunately, because of the early and aggressive actions and because of the extraordinary sacrifices of Marylanders, we are now in a position to move from containment and mitigation to plans for the gradual rollout of our recovery phase,” the Republican governor said.

But he emphasized that while social distancing and the state’s other mitigation efforts have shown early signs of positive results, it was not the time for residents to let up.

He did not mention reopening the economy, which President Trump and members of his administration have said they hope to do soon.

Maryland, a state with an estimated population of just more than 6 million, has recorded 10,032 coronavirus cases. Of those, 2,231 have been hospitalized, 607 have been released from isolation and 349 have died.

“It’s better than we had hoped and we think we’re making a difference, but the worst possible thing that could happen would be for people to say, ’It’s not that bad. Let’s go back to normal,’ and then it will be really bad,” Mr. Hogan said. “We’re just asking for caution.”

Mr. Hogan said the state’s recovery will rest on four “building blocks”: an exponential increase of testing capacity, a 6,000-bed increase in hospital surge capacity, “ramping up” the state’s supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and a contract tracing operation to investigate every case of the coronavirus.

Mr. Hogan said the state is converting the Hagerstown Correctional Facility and the closed Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park into hospital surge locations and will open 60 response tents in the towns of Frederick, Jessup, Hagerstown, Annapolis, Baltimore, Germantown and Randallstown.

Maryland also added three new disaster medical assistance teams in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The state also plans to quadruple its team of contract tracers from 250 to 1,000. Contract tracing is the process by which a victim of the pandemic helps a response team trace and inform who he or she came into contact with while infected.

“In order to massively increase that work force, we will need to ramp up considerably in order that we can reach every single new COVID-positive case in this state, and that is the goal to suppress this virus,” said Fran Phillips, Maryland’s deputy secretary of health.

Asked about Mr. Trump’s recent assertion that he had “absolute authority” to reopen the country when he felt it was ready, Mr. Hogan said it made for “an interesting dynamic” and pointed out that the president later backed off that stance.

“I think we’re going to have a productive discussion hopefully with the president and his task force tomorrow with all the governors,” Mr. Hogan said. “I believe that we can be partners in this. There are some smart people on the president’s task force. I think they can give us some good guidelines and the federal government can be a good partner with the states, and we can follow some recommended guidelines.”

But he added that the country’s governors will make their own decisions.

• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.

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