Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich announced Thursday that he will extend the county’s stay-at-home order at 5 p.m. Friday, when a statewide reopening plan is set to begin.
Mr. Elrich did not say how long the new order to stop the spread of the coronavirus will be in effect.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday that phase one of his statewide reopening plan will begin Friday, except for Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, which are still seeing increases in COVID-19 cases.
“Personally, I think he went farther than he probably should have right now,” Mr. Elrich said of Mr. Hogan’s decision to enter phase one. “He should’ve waited until the cases were at least on a downturn for a period of time so that you knew that you had more control over the virus than we do right now.”
Mr. Elrich said Montgomery County has the second highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in Maryland, after Prince George’s County, and combined the two counties have half of the state’s cases.
Dr. Travis Gayles of the Montgomery County Health and Human Services Department said the rate of hospitalization in the county isn’t where it needs to be to warrant reopening. RIght now, it is at around 19%, and he said it needs to be at least under 15%.
“If there’s an uptick, our hospitals can’t withstand an uptick,” Mr. Elrich said, noting four of the county’s six hospitals were recently at full capacity.
• Sophie Kaplan can be reached at skaplan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.