By Associated Press - Wednesday, April 22, 2020

LAUREL, Md. (AP) - Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan toured a reopened hospital on Wednesday in the county with the most coronavirus infections to highlight the increasing availability of hospital beds ahead of a potential surge in cases.

Hogan said the facility in Prince George’s County will add 135 beds, including 35 intensive care beds, adding to the steadily rising efforts to increase hospital capacity by 6,700 beds.

The event served as a prelude to Friday’s anticipated release of the governor’s plan for eventually reopening the state. However, Hogan emphasized that federal guidelines call for a downward trend in key numbers such as hospitalizations before implementing even the start of reopening.

“We are not at that point, and if you look at the Maryland, D.C. and Virginia area we’re still, although we’re hopeful that we’re going to start to see some numbers level off, we’re still currently on an upward trajectory rather than a downward trajectory,” Hogan said.

Maryland reported at least 14,775 cases on Wednesday, 582 more than Tuesday. The state also that there have been a total of 631 confirmed COVID-19 deaths statewide, up by 47 fatalities from a day earlier. Hogan said the details he will discuss Friday will outline a safe and gradual plan to enable the state to rebuild and recover “just as soon as it is safe for us to do so.”

The plan has four building blocks that need to be in place before the state can begin lifting restrictions. They include enhancing testing capacity, increasing the number of hospital beds, raising the amount of personal protective equipment and creating a robust contact tracing operation.

Hogan said the state has made significant progress in all four areas. The governor highlighted a shipment of 500,000 virus testing kits that arrived from South Korea on Saturday - putting Maryland way ahead, he said, of other states in acquiring testing.

Hogan said since Monday’s announcement, his phone has been “lighting up” from calls by governors across the country asking how they could get tests.

“I’m not sure what the answer to that question is, because I think that we’re the only state that Korea had made an agreement with, but we’re going to try to help everybody here in the state of Maryland first of all, but if we can help our neighbors and our other governors find a way to help their states, we’re going to do that,” Hogan said.

Meanwhile, Col. Eric Allely, state surgeon for the Maryland Army National Guard, said it has deployed teams to dozens of nursing homes to help provide medical care and COVID-19 testing of residents and staff members.

“The testing is definitely helpful because sometimes it means that we can pick up someone who may be asymptomatic and otherwise spreading the disease,” he said told reporters during a conference call on Wednesday.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and those with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and be life-threatening.

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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

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