GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good afternoon, everybody. Joining me today from the Maryland Department of Health are Secretary Bobby Neall, COO, Dennis Schrader, and acting Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services, Dr. Jinlene Chan as well as Dr. David Marcozzi from the University of Maryland Medical System.
Yesterday I contacted President‑Elect Biden and his team to lay out our most urgent priorities, most importantly, the desperate need for a stimulus relief package for small businesses and struggling families. Every day, I hear from small business owners who say that without this help, they may not be able to keep their doors open through the end of the year. Funding already ran out and CARES Act funding will run out at the end of this month. My message to everyone in congress on both sides of the aisle is absolutely clear. If you do nothing else, if you pass no other legislation and you can only accomplish one thing during this lame duck session, it must be to pass the relief package. We simply cannot wait until January 20th for this urgently‑needed relief. The time for partisan politics is over. We’ve been pushing for this for eight long months and the time has come to stop the partisan bickering and to reach a common-sense compromise and get this done once and for all for the American people.
Yesterday I had a meeting with Vice President Pence, the coronavirus task force, General Perna of Operation Warp Speed regarding vaccine distribution. Yesterday we held a meeting of the Maryland coronavirus task force along with many of the CEOs of our hospital systems across the state. And we had a discussion with the leadership of the Maryland Association of Counties and the Maryland Municipal League that we continue our outreach and communication efforts with local leaders across the state.
This morning, we convened our unified command task force as we constantly monitor all of the public health metrics in Maryland as well as the spiking numbers in states across the country. As of this morning, Maryland has surpassed 201,135 confirmed cases of COVID‑19 including an additional 2,765 cases in the past24 hours. We’ve had 27 straight days with more than 1,000 new cases. There were over 157,000 new cases yesterday in the U.S. The 28th straight day that new cases topped the 100,000 mark. Maryland’s positivity rate is 7.33%.
We continue to be in better shape than most of the nation. Our positivity rate is better than 41 other states. Our cases per 100,000 is better than 39 other states. According to travelers, we’re the 14th best state for residents voluntarily choose not to travel out of state and a Carnegie Mellon study just showed mask wearing compliance in the state of Maryland at 96%.
We are concerned, however, that our COVID hospitalizations have increased by 51% over the last two weeks. According to our modeling, we can expect to reach a new record high for hospitalizations in the coming days. 133 are currently in use at the Baltimore Convention Center, we reopened Laurel Hospital and the Washington expansion, all of which will be added. 1,583 COVID patients are hospitalized in Maryland which is the highest level since May 10th. And 350 Marylanders are currently in intensive care units. 21 hospitals in Maryland have reached ‑‑ more than 90% of their capacity. COVID‑19 hospitalization in the U.S. have surged to their highest level ever with over 96,000 Americans hospitalized.
As more and more hospitals across the nation are reaching their capacity limit. The virus has taken the lives of over 268,000 Americans including 4,516 Marylanders. Sadly, we have lost our youngest victim, a 1‑year‑old boy.
We are laser‑focused on taking actions in an effort to prevent the overburdening of our health care system. When we were dealing with the initial surge of COVID‑19 in the spring, we added 16,000 additional hospital beds to surge capacity and we took a number of steps to increase staff capabilities.
I issued an executive order to fast‑track the licensing process for out‑of‑state health care practitioners and those with an expired medical license and in order to provide broader authority, emergency medical technicians and paramedics to work in clinics and field hospitals. We asked the reserve corps, a force of thousands of trained health care professionals ready to assist in a public health emergency.
The Maryland Institute for emergency medical services also instituted a program to allow medical students, nursing students and technician students from our universities and colleges and community colleges to become part of this surge capacity. Last month, we increased the capacity and provided additional clinical care and staffing supports in nursing homes dealing with outbreaks. We issued an order which limited hospital visitation and gave guidance to hospitals and other medical facilities on elective procedure admissions that are not urgent or life‑saving as well as emergency order allowing hospitals that are either at or nearing capacity to transfer patients to hospitals which are more able to provide them with the care that they need.
The current surge is not only increasing the burden on our health care system and filling available hospital beds but it is also affecting our health care workers who are already spread thin and operating under immense strain and stress.
Today, in partnership with the Maryland hospital association and hospitals across the state, we’re taking a series of additional actions to further mobilize additional medical staffing to battle this COVID‑19 surge. We’re currently in need of people with clinical background to work in our hospitals, nursing homes, testing sites, and vaccination clinics across the state. Anyone interested in serving can go to marylandmednow.com. And we’re also contacting those individuals who have signed up for the Maryland Medical Reserve Corps.
We’re also requesting that all Maryland universities and colleges immediately develop emergency policies and procedures which will award academic credit to students who are willing to serve in health care during this pandemic. And we’re encouraging our colleges and universities to allow health care students who are in their final semester and have satisfied all graduation requirements to be eligible for early exit and expedited testing and licensing requirements in order to more expeditiously enter the workforce.
We’re also urging our counties to tap all nondeployed school nurses, health services staff, and other county employees to help staff our testing and vaccination sites. And we’re urging hospitals and nursing homes to begin utilizing unlicensed individuals to perform certain less critical in order to free up nursing staff.
In consultation with the doctors on our coronavirus task force and CEOs of Maryland hospitals, we’re taking these steps to ensure that every single Marylander in need of a hospital bed is able to get a hospital bed. Effective immediately, hospitals are also required to submit a surge plan which includes detailed strategies for the expansion of hospital bed and staffing capacity adjustments. These plans must be submitted to the Maryland Department of Health no later than December 8th. Hospitals should begin making adjustments on an emergency basis including adding or redeploying staff, reducing noncritical elective procedures that require ‑‑ particularly those that remember a ventilator and transferring patients to other appropriate treatment facilities.
We currently have 6,816 Marylanders in our state hospitals. When we reach the 8,000 total hospitalization statewide, all hospitals will be required to expand their staff by at least 10% within seven days of that trigger. The health services cost review commission is reinstating emergency policies to provide a more financial stability to the hospitals as they navigate this pandemic.
Now, after 40 years of incredible service to the state of Maryland in many capacities and helping delegates and the state senate and Anne Arundel County Executive and serving for the past six years in our administration, Secretary Bobby Neall’s retirement is effective today. He has been a longtime friend, a trusted adviser and confidante and a dedicated public servant throughout his nearly four decades in public service. Most importantly, as we went to war against this unprecedented, deadly pandemic. We’re incredibly grateful to him for his service and we wish him the very best in his retirement. So if you’ll indulge me, I would like to present a citation on behalf of the state and the people of Maryland just to thank him for his many years of service.
Stepping into his shoes immediately as the acting Secretary as the Maryland Secretary of Health is Dennis Schrader. Dennis has also been a longtime friend and a dedicated public servant who also has been a part of our administration for six years, most recently running point on our testing and hospital surge efforts during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Our acting Deputy Secretary for public health services, Dr. Jinlene Chan will be leading our COVID‑19 vaccine acquisition and distribution efforts. And Dr. David Marcozzi, who has served on our coronavirus task force and has been the COVID‑19 incident commander for University of Maryland Medical Systems will, effective immediately, serve as our senior medical adviser on COVID‑19. We’re very fortunate to have him playing a more prominent role on our team as we face the challenging weeks and months ahead. I’m really proud of him. This incredibly capable and talented team and all of the people who work under them, they will be playing a key role in guiding us through this critical and hopefully final phase of this pandemic response. So at this time, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. Marcozzi to provide some further details on medical staffing surge.
DAVID MARCOZZI: Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. It is a great honor to speak to you again today. At the start of November, it was obvious that we were entering a period of high risk, with the potential for peaks and mountains of new cases and illnesses. Unfortunately, the data confirms this and shows that more of us are being infected by this virus, more of us are transmitting it and more of us are becoming ill because of it.
Due to the rising number of case and the recent holidays, I’m very concerned that the next few weeks and months will be challenging as a result of continued and likely accelerated spread of this virus due to Thanksgiving. I do understand we all just want to take one day off from COVID‑19, especially during the holidays. Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t take a day off. We know that millions of Marylanders did the right thing over Thanksgiving. They stayed home. They gathered with only their household and avoided risky activities. To them, thank you. You have helped make a difference. Please keep it up.
It is easy to just think about the impact of this adviser as something abstract or inconvenient, that it will run its course, like a few bad weeks of winter weather. But let me be clear. There is no ceiling to this or at least one we do not want to test. In other words, cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise unless we take it on. Our actions, what we do as individuals, will stop the rising case count and slow the spread. We did it before and we can do it again.
In fact, earlier today, I had the privilege of speaking with leaders and parishioners at the Calvary Baptist Church in Baltimore who are thinking through the impact of this virus and how best to protect themselves and others during this high‑risk time. They are figuring out how to fight back and so should all of us. I have spoken before on this and want to continue to emphasize the importance of seeing your doctor or nurse‑practitioner if needed. You don’t want to survive this pandemic only to have your other medical conditions worsen.
Many providers have the ability to see you either by phone through telemedicine application or in their office. We all need to stay mentally healthy, particularly during this holiday season. Call your doctor’s office and make sure you maintain your health and have prescriptions and treatments you need. Let me brief. I will tell you what it’s like to work with the people I work with at the University of Maryland Medical System or every other hospital across our state. Beds are filling up with significant numbers of patients. Testing hospital surge plans and our health care hearings. The nurses, doctors and other health care professionals deliver that care in the most stressful environment. They persevere and are working extra shifts to carry the burden. That means potentially missing time at home during this holiday season. They do it for their patients. They do it to save lives. That said, those heroes are stretched thin.
And we need to think innovatively on how to address potential staffing constraints. As the governor mentioned, I believe there are opportunities for students to get involved in the response and colleges or other higher‑level educational programs should investigate providing help for their organizational participation in this response. For those dedicated health care providers, teachers and other essential workers who are selflessly working to support patients in our communities, thank you.
An army reserve officer to work on the values relevant to all of us in this response so that we can keep those essential workers protected. It is a concept of respect. The value for respect states treat people as they should be treated and in the creed, treat others with dignity and respect while expecting others to do the same. It is simple. Wearing a mask is a sign of respect. Let’s make it our normal. We wear over our nose and mouth limits the spread of our common, silent enemy and it helps protect each other. To get through this, no question about it. It will require courage. Courage to work together, courage to keep going. Courage to address health care disparities. Courage to ensure that data and science guide our decisions.
Marylanders, we need to get our second wave and double our efforts to get more of us through this healthy. With if we do that, we will not only maintain our health but also maintain our economy. I was reminded today that the holiday season theme is hope. We should have hope. We know how to fight back against this virus. And there are vaccines on the way. Very effective vaccines. When it is available to you, go and get one. When it is my turn, I will. Without hesitation or doubts. I have every confidence in the process and I believe that safety and efficacy will be proven and well‑documented.
Vaccines are the very best tool we have for getting back to normal. Our unity is our strength. If we’re successful in fighting back against this pandemic once again and we can do it again. Yes, we’re tired. But we’re also battle tested. We know what to expect and we’re ready for it. Let’s find our second wind. Let’s be smart. Show respect. Stay healthy. And to partially quote our governor, just wear the mask. Thank you.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you. We’re taking precaution as we think they’re necessary. We’ve taken a lot of actions on trying to restrict the virus and we’ll look at things as they become necessary. Our focus today is our health care providers and hospitals and people that are in the hospital.
DAVID MARCOZZI: I think this is a great opportunity to involve students. Students who are particularly health science students, who have partially trained and understand and accept the technique, how to put a shot in someone’s arm, vaccinate, how to collect samples for testing. Great opportunity there for colleges and universities to think through collectively how to make sure students are brought into the response.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good answer. An extender for professionals. Because if you have someone at the level that is able to, as he said, deliver a shot, do a swab, accepting responsibility for other things, we need to keep patients comfortable, then the nurses who are more highly skilled can focus on things where their help is needed the most.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: The whole country is going to get a small percentage of what we need because they’re not in production yet. So Dr. Chan can correct me if I’m wrong, we just got this information this afternoon before they announced it. Our first batch is going to be about 155,000 which is 50,000 and some odd change from Pfizer. The remaining number from Moderna and that’s a tiny fraction of what we need. It doesn’t even cover ‑‑ it covers half of our frontline workers. It doesn’t get anywhere near what we need.
The good news is they have vaccines that are years ahead of schedule and we’ll get some relatively fast. The bad news is it is not enough. So we have very difficult decisions which we’ll get into our next press conference about the implementation and roll‑out of the plan.
The good news in our discussion yesterday with General Perna and Vice President Pence and Dr. Fauci, we started at 50 tests a day and then now up to 50,000 tests a day in some cases, this will be a slow takeoff as we get producing and then hopefully we’re going to start getting volume out.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That was exactly the same question we got. We’re going to hopefully give you more info on that in our next press conference.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s maybe one of the others ‑‑ we don’t know exactly how many we’re going to keep. We know we don’t have enough. Just think about it. We’re expecting to potentially get a couple thousand more people in the hospital in short order. I don’t know how many staff we need to take care of a couple thousand extra people but with three shifts a day. Thousands of people that we need to help.
SPEAKER: We’re expecting that it will be upwards of 2,000 to 3,000 people. That’s why we’re making such a broad call because people are under stress already. So we’re looking for probably 2,000 to 3,000 people to step into roles over the next several weeks.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We just announced new restrictions last week so it is not like we’ve been waiting. Taken probably the most aggressive action and we’ll take them as we see fit. We have been for the past nine months.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is not enough. Pushing for this since going back to March which is the last time it got through. Pushing for a lot more. Right now, my main focus, because the CARES Act money is about to expire. Individuals are really suffering and there’s not enough money out there. State and local governments are running out of money. We need the help. While yes, we need more. We need more vaccines and we need more relief money but we’ll take what we can get now. So having nothing done for nine months has been really frustrating. Getting some compromise for some amount of money right now rather than waiting until next year is probably a step in the right direction.
So I’ve been in discussions ‑‑ I’ve reached out to Vice President Biden and Vice President Pence and phone calls with a couple of the other Senators today. Part of that compromise to try to weigh in and provide input. It is discouraging secretary said they won’t have a deal by the end of the year. Some senators are coming up with a much smaller package. It is not enough and I don’t want to say yeah, that would be great. But it would be better than nothing. My push is not for a specific amount or specific ‑‑ or what the democrats in the house want or what the republicans in the Senate want, I just want people to figure it out.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is obviously a big concern, yes. Our administration has been assisting counties. Information technology is at stake. It is a serious issue. They’re taking point on their school system to try to provide whatever input. It is a concern to other counties as well. This is something they were working on, trying to fix and couldn’t get it done in time and hopefully our other counties are not in the same position.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: So metro, like so many other things, revenues are done drastically because of the lack of ridership. If you remember, I put together an interstate compact agreement with Virginia and DC on saving the system two years ago and coming up with funding source to keep it afloat. But my push that wasn’t successful was to get the federal government to pay its fair share because most people that ride metro are federal employees and they don’t contribute.
I was trying to get them to kick in. One thing I’m going to do now with the incoming administration, first chance I get, the day they name a transportation secretary, my first call is going to be saying we need your help on metro. Which I tried to do with the current administration unsuccessfully and then Maryland and Virginia ‑‑ it is a mess and we’re going to need help.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is going to come out of the revenues throughout the course.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Yesterday we had a very interesting and frank discussion with our CEOs and public health experts and people doing the modeling and it is a scary situation for everybody involved. Our modeling has been pretty much on track. We do see in the next few days, us hitting a critical point. We think it will continue to get worse over the next several weeks and it is ‑‑ like Dr. Marcozzi said, most of the educated projections say that we’re not near the peak yet. And that the worst part of this entire crisis is still ahead of us over the next month or two.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I mentioned earlier a couple of different groups have done studies – 90% of Marylanders did not travel during the holidays so a lot of people were following the advice. Other people travel and we said anyone who did travel should be test and they should take it seriously. I heard some folks in Washington, if you travel for the Thanksgiving, you should assume that you’re infected. I don’t know if we should take it that far but definitely get tested before you are around other people. That was the last question.
Yesterday I contacted President‑Elect Biden and his team to lay out our most urgent priorities, most importantly, the desperate need for a stimulus relief package for small businesses and struggling families. Every day, I hear from small business owners who say that without this help, they may not be able to keep their doors open through the end of the year. Funding already ran out and CARES Act funding will run out at the end of this month. My message to everyone in congress on both sides of the aisle is absolutely clear. If you do nothing else, if you pass no other legislation and you can only accomplish one thing during this lame duck session, it must be to pass the relief package. We simply cannot wait until January 20th for this urgently‑needed relief. The time for partisan politics is over. We’ve been pushing for this for eight long months and the time has come to stop the partisan bickering and to reach a common-sense compromise and get this done once and for all for the American people.
Yesterday I had a meeting with Vice President Pence, the coronavirus task force, General Perna of Operation Warp Speed regarding vaccine distribution. Yesterday we held a meeting of the Maryland coronavirus task force along with many of the CEOs of our hospital systems across the state. And we had a discussion with the leadership of the Maryland Association of Counties and the Maryland Municipal League that we continue our outreach and communication efforts with local leaders across the state.
This morning, we convened our unified command task force as we constantly monitor all of the public health metrics in Maryland as well as the spiking numbers in states across the country. As of this morning, Maryland has surpassed 201,135 confirmed cases of COVID‑19 including an additional 2,765 cases in the past24 hours. We’ve had 27 straight days with more than 1,000 new cases. There were over 157,000 new cases yesterday in the U.S. The 28th straight day that new cases topped the 100,000 mark. Maryland’s positivity rate is 7.33%.
We continue to be in better shape than most of the nation. Our positivity rate is better than 41 other states. Our cases per 100,000 is better than 39 other states. According to travelers, we’re the 14th best state for residents voluntarily choose not to travel out of state and a Carnegie Mellon study just showed mask wearing compliance in the state of Maryland at 96%.
We are concerned, however, that our COVID hospitalizations have increased by 51% over the last two weeks. According to our modeling, we can expect to reach a new record high for hospitalizations in the coming days. 133 are currently in use at the Baltimore Convention Center, we reopened Laurel Hospital and the Washington expansion, all of which will be added. 1,583 COVID patients are hospitalized in Maryland which is the highest level since May 10th. And 350 Marylanders are currently in intensive care units. 21 hospitals in Maryland have reached ‑‑ more than 90% of their capacity. COVID‑19 hospitalization in the U.S. have surged to their highest level ever with over 96,000 Americans hospitalized.
As more and more hospitals across the nation are reaching their capacity limit. The virus has taken the lives of over 268,000 Americans including 4,516 Marylanders. Sadly, we have lost our youngest victim, a 1‑year‑old boy.
We are laser‑focused on taking actions in an effort to prevent the overburdening of our health care system. When we were dealing with the initial surge of COVID‑19 in the spring, we added 16,000 additional hospital beds to surge capacity and we took a number of steps to increase staff capabilities.
I issued an executive order to fast‑track the licensing process for out‑of‑state health care practitioners and those with an expired medical license and in order to provide broader authority, emergency medical technicians and paramedics to work in clinics and field hospitals. We asked the reserve corps, a force of thousands of trained health care professionals ready to assist in a public health emergency.
The Maryland Institute for emergency medical services also instituted a program to allow medical students, nursing students and technician students from our universities and colleges and community colleges to become part of this surge capacity. Last month, we increased the capacity and provided additional clinical care and staffing supports in nursing homes dealing with outbreaks. We issued an order which limited hospital visitation and gave guidance to hospitals and other medical facilities on elective procedure admissions that are not urgent or life‑saving as well as emergency order allowing hospitals that are either at or nearing capacity to transfer patients to hospitals which are more able to provide them with the care that they need.
The current surge is not only increasing the burden on our health care system and filling available hospital beds but it is also affecting our health care workers who are already spread thin and operating under immense strain and stress.
Today, in partnership with the Maryland hospital association and hospitals across the state, we’re taking a series of additional actions to further mobilize additional medical staffing to battle this COVID‑19 surge. We’re currently in need of people with clinical background to work in our hospitals, nursing homes, testing sites, and vaccination clinics across the state. Anyone interested in serving can go to marylandmednow.com. And we’re also contacting those individuals who have signed up for the Maryland Medical Reserve Corps.
We’re also requesting that all Maryland universities and colleges immediately develop emergency policies and procedures which will award academic credit to students who are willing to serve in health care during this pandemic. And we’re encouraging our colleges and universities to allow health care students who are in their final semester and have satisfied all graduation requirements to be eligible for early exit and expedited testing and licensing requirements in order to more expeditiously enter the workforce.
We’re also urging our counties to tap all nondeployed school nurses, health services staff, and other county employees to help staff our testing and vaccination sites. And we’re urging hospitals and nursing homes to begin utilizing unlicensed individuals to perform certain less critical in order to free up nursing staff.
In consultation with the doctors on our coronavirus task force and CEOs of Maryland hospitals, we’re taking these steps to ensure that every single Marylander in need of a hospital bed is able to get a hospital bed. Effective immediately, hospitals are also required to submit a surge plan which includes detailed strategies for the expansion of hospital bed and staffing capacity adjustments. These plans must be submitted to the Maryland Department of Health no later than December 8th. Hospitals should begin making adjustments on an emergency basis including adding or redeploying staff, reducing noncritical elective procedures that require ‑‑ particularly those that remember a ventilator and transferring patients to other appropriate treatment facilities.
We currently have 6,816 Marylanders in our state hospitals. When we reach the 8,000 total hospitalization statewide, all hospitals will be required to expand their staff by at least 10% within seven days of that trigger. The health services cost review commission is reinstating emergency policies to provide a more financial stability to the hospitals as they navigate this pandemic.
Now, after 40 years of incredible service to the state of Maryland in many capacities and helping delegates and the state senate and Anne Arundel County Executive and serving for the past six years in our administration, Secretary Bobby Neall’s retirement is effective today. He has been a longtime friend, a trusted adviser and confidante and a dedicated public servant throughout his nearly four decades in public service. Most importantly, as we went to war against this unprecedented, deadly pandemic. We’re incredibly grateful to him for his service and we wish him the very best in his retirement. So if you’ll indulge me, I would like to present a citation on behalf of the state and the people of Maryland just to thank him for his many years of service.
Stepping into his shoes immediately as the acting Secretary as the Maryland Secretary of Health is Dennis Schrader. Dennis has also been a longtime friend and a dedicated public servant who also has been a part of our administration for six years, most recently running point on our testing and hospital surge efforts during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Our acting Deputy Secretary for public health services, Dr. Jinlene Chan will be leading our COVID‑19 vaccine acquisition and distribution efforts. And Dr. David Marcozzi, who has served on our coronavirus task force and has been the COVID‑19 incident commander for University of Maryland Medical Systems will, effective immediately, serve as our senior medical adviser on COVID‑19. We’re very fortunate to have him playing a more prominent role on our team as we face the challenging weeks and months ahead. I’m really proud of him. This incredibly capable and talented team and all of the people who work under them, they will be playing a key role in guiding us through this critical and hopefully final phase of this pandemic response. So at this time, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. Marcozzi to provide some further details on medical staffing surge.
DAVID MARCOZZI: Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. It is a great honor to speak to you again today. At the start of November, it was obvious that we were entering a period of high risk, with the potential for peaks and mountains of new cases and illnesses. Unfortunately, the data confirms this and shows that more of us are being infected by this virus, more of us are transmitting it and more of us are becoming ill because of it.
Due to the rising number of case and the recent holidays, I’m very concerned that the next few weeks and months will be challenging as a result of continued and likely accelerated spread of this virus due to Thanksgiving. I do understand we all just want to take one day off from COVID‑19, especially during the holidays. Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t take a day off. We know that millions of Marylanders did the right thing over Thanksgiving. They stayed home. They gathered with only their household and avoided risky activities. To them, thank you. You have helped make a difference. Please keep it up.
It is easy to just think about the impact of this adviser as something abstract or inconvenient, that it will run its course, like a few bad weeks of winter weather. But let me be clear. There is no ceiling to this or at least one we do not want to test. In other words, cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise unless we take it on. Our actions, what we do as individuals, will stop the rising case count and slow the spread. We did it before and we can do it again.
In fact, earlier today, I had the privilege of speaking with leaders and parishioners at the Calvary Baptist Church in Baltimore who are thinking through the impact of this virus and how best to protect themselves and others during this high‑risk time. They are figuring out how to fight back and so should all of us. I have spoken before on this and want to continue to emphasize the importance of seeing your doctor or nurse‑practitioner if needed. You don’t want to survive this pandemic only to have your other medical conditions worsen.
Many providers have the ability to see you either by phone through telemedicine application or in their office. We all need to stay mentally healthy, particularly during this holiday season. Call your doctor’s office and make sure you maintain your health and have prescriptions and treatments you need. Let me brief. I will tell you what it’s like to work with the people I work with at the University of Maryland Medical System or every other hospital across our state. Beds are filling up with significant numbers of patients. Testing hospital surge plans and our health care hearings. The nurses, doctors and other health care professionals deliver that care in the most stressful environment. They persevere and are working extra shifts to carry the burden. That means potentially missing time at home during this holiday season. They do it for their patients. They do it to save lives. That said, those heroes are stretched thin.
And we need to think innovatively on how to address potential staffing constraints. As the governor mentioned, I believe there are opportunities for students to get involved in the response and colleges or other higher‑level educational programs should investigate providing help for their organizational participation in this response. For those dedicated health care providers, teachers and other essential workers who are selflessly working to support patients in our communities, thank you.
An army reserve officer to work on the values relevant to all of us in this response so that we can keep those essential workers protected. It is a concept of respect. The value for respect states treat people as they should be treated and in the creed, treat others with dignity and respect while expecting others to do the same. It is simple. Wearing a mask is a sign of respect. Let’s make it our normal. We wear over our nose and mouth limits the spread of our common, silent enemy and it helps protect each other. To get through this, no question about it. It will require courage. Courage to work together, courage to keep going. Courage to address health care disparities. Courage to ensure that data and science guide our decisions.
Marylanders, we need to get our second wave and double our efforts to get more of us through this healthy. With if we do that, we will not only maintain our health but also maintain our economy. I was reminded today that the holiday season theme is hope. We should have hope. We know how to fight back against this virus. And there are vaccines on the way. Very effective vaccines. When it is available to you, go and get one. When it is my turn, I will. Without hesitation or doubts. I have every confidence in the process and I believe that safety and efficacy will be proven and well‑documented.
Vaccines are the very best tool we have for getting back to normal. Our unity is our strength. If we’re successful in fighting back against this pandemic once again and we can do it again. Yes, we’re tired. But we’re also battle tested. We know what to expect and we’re ready for it. Let’s find our second wind. Let’s be smart. Show respect. Stay healthy. And to partially quote our governor, just wear the mask. Thank you.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you. We’re taking precaution as we think they’re necessary. We’ve taken a lot of actions on trying to restrict the virus and we’ll look at things as they become necessary. Our focus today is our health care providers and hospitals and people that are in the hospital.
DAVID MARCOZZI: I think this is a great opportunity to involve students. Students who are particularly health science students, who have partially trained and understand and accept the technique, how to put a shot in someone’s arm, vaccinate, how to collect samples for testing. Great opportunity there for colleges and universities to think through collectively how to make sure students are brought into the response.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good answer. An extender for professionals. Because if you have someone at the level that is able to, as he said, deliver a shot, do a swab, accepting responsibility for other things, we need to keep patients comfortable, then the nurses who are more highly skilled can focus on things where their help is needed the most.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: The whole country is going to get a small percentage of what we need because they’re not in production yet. So Dr. Chan can correct me if I’m wrong, we just got this information this afternoon before they announced it. Our first batch is going to be about 155,000 which is 50,000 and some odd change from Pfizer. The remaining number from Moderna and that’s a tiny fraction of what we need. It doesn’t even cover ‑‑ it covers half of our frontline workers. It doesn’t get anywhere near what we need.
The good news is they have vaccines that are years ahead of schedule and we’ll get some relatively fast. The bad news is it is not enough. So we have very difficult decisions which we’ll get into our next press conference about the implementation and roll‑out of the plan.
The good news in our discussion yesterday with General Perna and Vice President Pence and Dr. Fauci, we started at 50 tests a day and then now up to 50,000 tests a day in some cases, this will be a slow takeoff as we get producing and then hopefully we’re going to start getting volume out.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That was exactly the same question we got. We’re going to hopefully give you more info on that in our next press conference.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s maybe one of the others ‑‑ we don’t know exactly how many we’re going to keep. We know we don’t have enough. Just think about it. We’re expecting to potentially get a couple thousand more people in the hospital in short order. I don’t know how many staff we need to take care of a couple thousand extra people but with three shifts a day. Thousands of people that we need to help.
SPEAKER: We’re expecting that it will be upwards of 2,000 to 3,000 people. That’s why we’re making such a broad call because people are under stress already. So we’re looking for probably 2,000 to 3,000 people to step into roles over the next several weeks.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We just announced new restrictions last week so it is not like we’ve been waiting. Taken probably the most aggressive action and we’ll take them as we see fit. We have been for the past nine months.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is not enough. Pushing for this since going back to March which is the last time it got through. Pushing for a lot more. Right now, my main focus, because the CARES Act money is about to expire. Individuals are really suffering and there’s not enough money out there. State and local governments are running out of money. We need the help. While yes, we need more. We need more vaccines and we need more relief money but we’ll take what we can get now. So having nothing done for nine months has been really frustrating. Getting some compromise for some amount of money right now rather than waiting until next year is probably a step in the right direction.
So I’ve been in discussions ‑‑ I’ve reached out to Vice President Biden and Vice President Pence and phone calls with a couple of the other Senators today. Part of that compromise to try to weigh in and provide input. It is discouraging secretary said they won’t have a deal by the end of the year. Some senators are coming up with a much smaller package. It is not enough and I don’t want to say yeah, that would be great. But it would be better than nothing. My push is not for a specific amount or specific ‑‑ or what the democrats in the house want or what the republicans in the Senate want, I just want people to figure it out.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is obviously a big concern, yes. Our administration has been assisting counties. Information technology is at stake. It is a serious issue. They’re taking point on their school system to try to provide whatever input. It is a concern to other counties as well. This is something they were working on, trying to fix and couldn’t get it done in time and hopefully our other counties are not in the same position.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: So metro, like so many other things, revenues are done drastically because of the lack of ridership. If you remember, I put together an interstate compact agreement with Virginia and DC on saving the system two years ago and coming up with funding source to keep it afloat. But my push that wasn’t successful was to get the federal government to pay its fair share because most people that ride metro are federal employees and they don’t contribute.
I was trying to get them to kick in. One thing I’m going to do now with the incoming administration, first chance I get, the day they name a transportation secretary, my first call is going to be saying we need your help on metro. Which I tried to do with the current administration unsuccessfully and then Maryland and Virginia ‑‑ it is a mess and we’re going to need help.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It is going to come out of the revenues throughout the course.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Yesterday we had a very interesting and frank discussion with our CEOs and public health experts and people doing the modeling and it is a scary situation for everybody involved. Our modeling has been pretty much on track. We do see in the next few days, us hitting a critical point. We think it will continue to get worse over the next several weeks and it is ‑‑ like Dr. Marcozzi said, most of the educated projections say that we’re not near the peak yet. And that the worst part of this entire crisis is still ahead of us over the next month or two.
SPEAKER: (Off Microphone).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I mentioned earlier a couple of different groups have done studies – 90% of Marylanders did not travel during the holidays so a lot of people were following the advice. Other people travel and we said anyone who did travel should be test and they should take it seriously. I heard some folks in Washington, if you travel for the Thanksgiving, you should assume that you’re infected. I don’t know if we should take it that far but definitely get tested before you are around other people. That was the last question.