GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good afternoon. Joining me today are Secretary of Human Services, Lourdes Padilla, and Dr. Jinlene Chan from the Maryland Department of Health.
We’re here to announce some new initiatives and additional investment that will protect the health and safety of Marylanders from COVID-19.
First I want to provide an update on the latest metric in our fight against this deadly virus. As of this morning, Maryland has had 159,900 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including an additional 1,477 cases over the past 24 hours. There were 144,000 new cases across the U.S. yesterday. The nation’s largest one-day total ever. And it is the ninth straight day that new cases have topped the 100,000 mark.
Today, Maryland’s 7-day positivity rate increased once again to 5.65% and half of our 24 jurisdictions now have positivity rates above 5% including Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Charles, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Prince George’s, Queen Anne, Somerset, and Washington Counties.
Our COVID hospitalizations increased by 53% over the past two weeks. Today, 863 COVID patients are currently hospitalized in Maryland which is our highest level since June 11. 199 patients are currently in intensive care units which is the highest level we’ve had since June 25. Nationwide, we’re now averaging over 1600 additional new hospitalizations each day over the day before and yesterday COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. surged for their highest level ever with 34,000 patients hospitalized.
Maryland is in the red zone for case rates as designated by the federal government and while we remain lower than 37 other states, our average cases per 100,000 has risen to 22.8 which is a 52% increase in just the last seven days. Our case rates have now risen above ten and 22 out of our 24 jurisdictions and above 20 in 10 jurisdictions. So far the virus has taken the lives of 4,112 Marylanders and over 247,000 Americans. 1,421 Americans including 12 more Marylanders died in the past 24 hours.
Our entire COVID response team is on high alert and we will continue to constantly monitor all of the public health metrics here in Maryland as well as the spiking numbers in the region and across the country. We are experiencing out-of-control spikes across the United States and we are seeing widespread transmission here in Maryland. Thanks to the vigilance of the people of Maryland, our metric currently remains better than most of the nation.
We’re also in a much better position than we were this spring. Maryland is much better prepared than most states to be able to withstand this very significant surge. More than 460,000 Marylanders subscribe to our MD COVID Alert contact tracing app in just the last 48 hours since its launch. This is an important tool in our fight against COVID-19. And we’re encouraging everyone to opt in which will help us stop the spread and protect our fellow Marylanders.
The weeks and months ahead are going to be very difficult. With more and more people getting infected, being hospitalized, and losing their lives. Our collective actions now will determine what further steps will be needed. As we renew and redouble our efforts to flatten the curve once again, we’re also committed to doing everything we can to help struggling Maryland families and small businesses who are desperately in need of additional relief.
The gridlock in Washington and failure of both parties to reach any compromise on the next stimulus package is having a devastating impact on our business community and on the lives of our citizens. Our leaders in Washington on both sides of the aisle need to put the politics aside, do their job and get this done for the American people. 81,000 Maryland businesses have already received $10 billion in funding. We’ve already paid out now nearly $8 billion in unemployment assistance to more than 640,000 Marylanders.
The State of Maryland has also previously survived $250 million in funding for emergency economic relief including more than 10,000 grants and loans to small businesses and nonprofits. That has doubled our state relief effort to $500 million to fund a combination of new small business relief programs to protect jobs and to expand our existing successful program in order to immediately provide additional desperately-needed relief to the businesses and their employees who are most in need. This includes a new $50 million direct relief for restaurants which the state is distributing through and by our county government. Many of them have already begun accepting applications for these state funds and we are, again, calling on the other counties to immediately do so.
Counties have also been given significant funding which must be distributed within the next 48 days or it will be forfeited. We’ve asked our county government to match our state dollars by utilizing this federal CARES Act funding. I want to commend Anne Arundel County officials for agreeing to match the state’s investment in this important program. And we urge the other counties to do so as well. We’ve committed an additional $50 million for the third installment of our small business COVID relief grant fund.
The department of commerce that is currently processing hundreds of applications daily and that money will begin going out in the coming days. We also tripled our investment in the state’s COVID-19 layoff aversion fund and the Department of Labor already began distributing over $5.7 million to businesses earlier this week. Over 12,000 jobs have been saved through this program so far with more help on the way.
We are also making rapid progress on getting additional funding out for initiatives to help businesses, entertainment venues and local tourism and arts organizations. I directed our team and multiple agencies to distribute these relief funds immediately. Any struggling small business owners who need assistance should go to open.maryland.gov to learn more about these economic relief programs.
Today we are now seeing another $70 million in investments utilizing CARES Act funding to do further — to further bolster other emergency response to this COVID-19 surge. First, we’re adding another $20 million to continue building up our strategic stockpile of PPE. Federal officials have encouraged states to have 60-day supplies. We’re meeting and in many cases, already exceeding our goal of stockpiling 90-day supplies of the most critical resources.
Earlier this week, state budget officials reached out again to county leaders who strongly encouraged them to use some of their remaining CARES Act resources to build up their supplies of critical PPE, especially gloves, gowns and masks. We’re providing an additional $15 million to the Maryland Department of Labor to have even more staffing, to, again, ramp up the call center and to invest in more adjudication staffing, customer service management software and to beef up our successful fraud detection programming which has already helped us save more than $500 million in tax dollars.
Today, we are doubling our investment in the rental housing assistance program, adding another $10 million to cover rent payments for low-income tenants who have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis. This program has already provided more than 4500 Maryland families with assistance and is currently accepting new applications in order to assist more.
40 Maryland companies are currently working on developing and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines and innovative therapeutics including Novavax which is adding another 400 jobs and was awarded $1.6 million to complete late H.J. stage clinical development and to establish large-scale manufacturing in order to deliver $100 million vaccine doses as early as late this year.
Earlier this week in addition to the encouraging news from Pfizer, Novavax received a fast-track designation from the FDA for their vaccine. Back in April, our team at the Maryland Department of Health began interagency process to develop a plan for ordering, distributing and administering COVID-19 vaccines. Last month, we submitted our draft vaccination distribution plan to the CDC, prioritizing vulnerable populations, including older Marylanders, health care workers, first responders and others on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Today, we’re providing the initial funding of that plan with that initial investment of $10 million toward the acquisition of syringes and other necessary vaccination supplies. Over the past eight months, we built a COVID-19 infrastructure from scratch but this vaccination plan will be yet another unprecedented undertaking for our state. Working closely with our hospitals and health care providers, we will continue to aggressively prepare so that we are ready to act immediately when a vaccine becomes available.
Today we are also providing $10 million in additional support for Maryland food banks as part of our Maryland unites initiative food banks across our state have stepped up during this crisis in a truly inspiring way to help people in need. In order to bolster their efforts, the state invested another $4 million to the Maryland food bank and the capital area food bank. We work together with local jurisdictions to match that investment and with the holiday season approaching today, we’re more than doubling our state commitment for an additional $10 million.
We are investing an additional $2 million in emergency supplemental funds for foster care providers to help support the needs of the youth entrusted to their care. This funding will be used to increase staffing, housing, case management services, food, transportation, and cleaning supplies. Another $2 million in CARES Act funding will enable the Maryland department of human services to increase call handling capacity to extend their daily hours of operations and to add weekend operations specifically to assist in managing the increase in benefit requests and energy assistance programs.
Finally today, we are dedicating $1 million for an innovative wastewater sampling program by the Maryland Department of Health and the Maryland department of the environment to help detect COVID outbreaks in vulnerable populations. This partnership between state and local health departments will test wastewater in public housing settings and correctional facilities across the state. This science-based field-tested program will help provide us more data to detect and respond to outbreaks and to help us save more lives.
The $70 million of new investments I’m announcing today will help us to protect the health and safety of more Marylanders. We’re once again asking our county government partners to do their part as well by utilizing their remaining CARES Act funding ahead of the expiration of those funds in 48 days.
I want to commend Baltimore County on this week’s announcement that $11.5 million in CARES Act funding will be utilized to help public schools prepare to reopen. And to provide additional relief for restaurants. Harford County also announced $2 million in CARES Act funding this week to support local fire department and EMS organizations which have been overwhelmed on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Some counties, however, have not yet allocated the bulk of the assistance funding which has already been provided to them. To help assist small businesses in their communities, the state passed through more than $362 billion in federal CARES Act funding through our smaller counties. While the largest five counties received another $691 million directly from the federal government in CARES Act funding. If money is required by law by the end of the calendar year.
We’re again calling on all 24 jurisdictions to immediately get this funding out the door to the struggling Marylanders and small businesses who need it the most. I’ve always told it to you straight and the sad truth is that the next several months will likely be, by far, the most difficult that we have faced. And I want to continue to remind everyone that this truly is and all-hands-on deck operation.
Unfortunately, we have more tough times ahead of us and it is likely going to get worse before it gets better. But we truly are all in this together. And if we all do our part to rise to this challenge and to meet this moment, we will get through this together. Thank you and with that, I would be happy to take some questions.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: As we’ve said at every one of our 60 press conferences over the last six or nine months or so, the state law provides for local government to make their own decisions. They can be more restrictive. We’re comfortable with decisions we’ve made statewide and we’ve left the flexibility with the counties to make their own decisions. We’re going to continue to track the metrics and make our decisions every day.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We have a universal statewide mask order which has been in effect since the spring and we’ve been calling on our local leaders to help enforce that because they have not been doing a very good job of doing that. But while we put all indoor places and every public place, outdoors, whenever you cannot safely distance and stay six feet apart.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We appointed the task force to meet with stakeholders and people throughout the government to talk about this. There is no question we’re seeing it throughout our department. Suicides are up. Problems with substance abuse, domestic abuse. People are under incredible pressures and this is a problem that we’re trying to address through our health department and through a number of other places. We’re trying to help people as much as we can through our youth programs and through multiple departments.
This is going to continue to be a crisis, the health crisis, mental health crisis and financial crisis.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We see differently from different places. We have our own internal modeling. We work very closely with Johns Hopkins, we’re looking at the Harvard modeling and we get input from some of the smartest public health professionals and scientists and doctors.
The numbers, as you hear, could be much worse than they were in the spring but I don’t want to give a specific number. If you remember back in March, Johns Hopkins was saying we would have more than 12,900 Marylanders dead by June 1st. We thankfully were able to avoid that with a lot of hard work by a lot of people and people really listening to the advice. We’re telling you again that you really can change the trajectory of the numbers. We did have a situation back in the spring where we had our hospitals overloaded. We didn’t have enough ICU beds or ventilators. We had to rent an ice rink because all of the funeral homes and morgues were overloaded. We do not want to be in that situation again.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We had a group call with the Coronavirus Task Force the day before the election, I think. Monday. I haven’t had a conversation with anybody on the Coronavirus Task Force since then. One of the things I’m frustrated about. Look, I understand we just went through a contentious election but it really is becoming a problem in that I think the people in the White House are focused on elections and the people in the Biden Administration don’t have any information and haven’t taken over and they’re in a little bit of a vacuum right now.
States are experiencing the worst part of the crisis and we don’t really know what’s going on at the federal level and we don’t see action out of congress either. Still bickering, still fighting. Still not reaching compromise which is very frustrating to us who are trying to save lives.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Our department of housing and community development, I mentioned earlier that they’ve been able to help 4500 people with rental assistance already. They were out of money. So we put more money in and we’re going to try to get the dollars out the door as fast as we get the applications in. We had a backlog. We’re opening up the application process to help more folks. We want to get it out to them as quickly as we can.
Q (Off Microphone)
SPEAKER: The Maryland Department of Health has been working with the department of environment over the last several months on a pilot program, look at how wastewater may be able to detect the presence of coronavirus in the wastewater. So that allows us to potentially predict or then go back and do more specific testing of the people within the facility. The funding that the governor has dedicated to this project will be very targeted initially. We are working as he indicated with the department of corrections, at the state level, because there has been an impact in the correctional facilities. And also looking at how we can look at coronavirus circulating around a low-income public housing. That’s where the initial work is starting.
Q (Off Microphone)
SPEAKER: I think that the message that we put out earlier this year still stands and as the governor indicated, those metrics and many other counties are higher than what we had indicated. However, it ultimately is the decision of the local school board in conjunction with the local health department. What we would still encourage is that as we balance all of the different actions, we just talked about the mental health impact. Mental health is also important. Even in this circumstance, find a balance of the mental health needs.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Our metrics haven’t changed with the schools. We work together with our local school system to help the superintendent of schools and is doing that on a daily basis. With respect to the wastewater treatment plant, we had done the testing to see if this works before and the studies are done. And now we’re funding it at least on a targeted basis to start with our populations that we thought would be easy to do and that we were forced to do it. It may be something that — if that works out effectively, we would take it to the next level.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I’m not willing to waste any time at all. We will change them if it is an hour or a day. We take action pretty quickly as we have for the past five months. We’re acting aggressively.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I can only reiterate what we’ve said. My goal is to keep as much of our economy open as many people working, and our lives as normal as policy while we’re trying to keep people alive and keep hospitals from overflowing. We’re making the decisions the best we can every single day. I understand the concern of people. I’m one of those people that is concerned. We’re all concerned. None of us wants this to happen.
We’re going to make the decisions we have to make. I don’t know what the definition of a lockdown is. We never really had a lockdown. We didn’t even have a stay at home order. We kept 70% of our economy open the entire time. But might we have to take more restrictive actions over the coming weeks or months? Absolutely, we might.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s a really good question, Tom. We’re trying to deliver the message. Whether or not they’re getting the message is another story. And it is not just the administrations but it is also congress with the turnover and changes and they’re focused on other things. This is a really tough time. PPE money ran out. Stimulus bill was quite a while ago.
I had agreement from the White House — I was hearing — from both sides in congress, inches away from getting — we’re now in November. And the virus is at the worst point ever and we don’t have the money. And I talked to my fellow governors and I talked to some today and I talked to some yesterday. We’re very, very concerned with the continued gridlock, divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington while people’s lives are at stake. There’s mental health and everything else.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s a great question. Thank you for asking that because I am taking my own advice. We actually were hoping to get our family together. I was going to have my three daughters and my three son-in-laws and my four grandkids over to the governor’s mansion for a nice Thanksgiving. And we made the determination to cancel all of those plans. Everybody is going to stay home with their immediate families. First lady and I will be having dinner together by ourselves.
It is exactly what we’re telling people. I don’t know how you implement the types of orders that some of the counties are taking about what people do in their own house. I have been strongly advising people that it is much safer that family gatherings are the most dangerous thing that we have and we’re taking it to heart.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Some of the counties didn’t understand how it worked and they were hoping maybe that congress might change the law but the administration would change regs and there were reports by some of you. There was reporting that the county leaders said hey, we want to save this until next year and spend it later. I know you want to but it would be great if we had more time. We have desperate need right now. We’re going to spend every penny and we’re going to encourage them to do so. It is not like there’s excess money laying around that we don’t need. Thank you.
We’re here to announce some new initiatives and additional investment that will protect the health and safety of Marylanders from COVID-19.
First I want to provide an update on the latest metric in our fight against this deadly virus. As of this morning, Maryland has had 159,900 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including an additional 1,477 cases over the past 24 hours. There were 144,000 new cases across the U.S. yesterday. The nation’s largest one-day total ever. And it is the ninth straight day that new cases have topped the 100,000 mark.
Today, Maryland’s 7-day positivity rate increased once again to 5.65% and half of our 24 jurisdictions now have positivity rates above 5% including Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Charles, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Prince George’s, Queen Anne, Somerset, and Washington Counties.
Our COVID hospitalizations increased by 53% over the past two weeks. Today, 863 COVID patients are currently hospitalized in Maryland which is our highest level since June 11. 199 patients are currently in intensive care units which is the highest level we’ve had since June 25. Nationwide, we’re now averaging over 1600 additional new hospitalizations each day over the day before and yesterday COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. surged for their highest level ever with 34,000 patients hospitalized.
Maryland is in the red zone for case rates as designated by the federal government and while we remain lower than 37 other states, our average cases per 100,000 has risen to 22.8 which is a 52% increase in just the last seven days. Our case rates have now risen above ten and 22 out of our 24 jurisdictions and above 20 in 10 jurisdictions. So far the virus has taken the lives of 4,112 Marylanders and over 247,000 Americans. 1,421 Americans including 12 more Marylanders died in the past 24 hours.
Our entire COVID response team is on high alert and we will continue to constantly monitor all of the public health metrics here in Maryland as well as the spiking numbers in the region and across the country. We are experiencing out-of-control spikes across the United States and we are seeing widespread transmission here in Maryland. Thanks to the vigilance of the people of Maryland, our metric currently remains better than most of the nation.
We’re also in a much better position than we were this spring. Maryland is much better prepared than most states to be able to withstand this very significant surge. More than 460,000 Marylanders subscribe to our MD COVID Alert contact tracing app in just the last 48 hours since its launch. This is an important tool in our fight against COVID-19. And we’re encouraging everyone to opt in which will help us stop the spread and protect our fellow Marylanders.
The weeks and months ahead are going to be very difficult. With more and more people getting infected, being hospitalized, and losing their lives. Our collective actions now will determine what further steps will be needed. As we renew and redouble our efforts to flatten the curve once again, we’re also committed to doing everything we can to help struggling Maryland families and small businesses who are desperately in need of additional relief.
The gridlock in Washington and failure of both parties to reach any compromise on the next stimulus package is having a devastating impact on our business community and on the lives of our citizens. Our leaders in Washington on both sides of the aisle need to put the politics aside, do their job and get this done for the American people. 81,000 Maryland businesses have already received $10 billion in funding. We’ve already paid out now nearly $8 billion in unemployment assistance to more than 640,000 Marylanders.
The State of Maryland has also previously survived $250 million in funding for emergency economic relief including more than 10,000 grants and loans to small businesses and nonprofits. That has doubled our state relief effort to $500 million to fund a combination of new small business relief programs to protect jobs and to expand our existing successful program in order to immediately provide additional desperately-needed relief to the businesses and their employees who are most in need. This includes a new $50 million direct relief for restaurants which the state is distributing through and by our county government. Many of them have already begun accepting applications for these state funds and we are, again, calling on the other counties to immediately do so.
Counties have also been given significant funding which must be distributed within the next 48 days or it will be forfeited. We’ve asked our county government to match our state dollars by utilizing this federal CARES Act funding. I want to commend Anne Arundel County officials for agreeing to match the state’s investment in this important program. And we urge the other counties to do so as well. We’ve committed an additional $50 million for the third installment of our small business COVID relief grant fund.
The department of commerce that is currently processing hundreds of applications daily and that money will begin going out in the coming days. We also tripled our investment in the state’s COVID-19 layoff aversion fund and the Department of Labor already began distributing over $5.7 million to businesses earlier this week. Over 12,000 jobs have been saved through this program so far with more help on the way.
We are also making rapid progress on getting additional funding out for initiatives to help businesses, entertainment venues and local tourism and arts organizations. I directed our team and multiple agencies to distribute these relief funds immediately. Any struggling small business owners who need assistance should go to open.maryland.gov to learn more about these economic relief programs.
Today we are now seeing another $70 million in investments utilizing CARES Act funding to do further — to further bolster other emergency response to this COVID-19 surge. First, we’re adding another $20 million to continue building up our strategic stockpile of PPE. Federal officials have encouraged states to have 60-day supplies. We’re meeting and in many cases, already exceeding our goal of stockpiling 90-day supplies of the most critical resources.
Earlier this week, state budget officials reached out again to county leaders who strongly encouraged them to use some of their remaining CARES Act resources to build up their supplies of critical PPE, especially gloves, gowns and masks. We’re providing an additional $15 million to the Maryland Department of Labor to have even more staffing, to, again, ramp up the call center and to invest in more adjudication staffing, customer service management software and to beef up our successful fraud detection programming which has already helped us save more than $500 million in tax dollars.
Today, we are doubling our investment in the rental housing assistance program, adding another $10 million to cover rent payments for low-income tenants who have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis. This program has already provided more than 4500 Maryland families with assistance and is currently accepting new applications in order to assist more.
40 Maryland companies are currently working on developing and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines and innovative therapeutics including Novavax which is adding another 400 jobs and was awarded $1.6 million to complete late H.J. stage clinical development and to establish large-scale manufacturing in order to deliver $100 million vaccine doses as early as late this year.
Earlier this week in addition to the encouraging news from Pfizer, Novavax received a fast-track designation from the FDA for their vaccine. Back in April, our team at the Maryland Department of Health began interagency process to develop a plan for ordering, distributing and administering COVID-19 vaccines. Last month, we submitted our draft vaccination distribution plan to the CDC, prioritizing vulnerable populations, including older Marylanders, health care workers, first responders and others on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Today, we’re providing the initial funding of that plan with that initial investment of $10 million toward the acquisition of syringes and other necessary vaccination supplies. Over the past eight months, we built a COVID-19 infrastructure from scratch but this vaccination plan will be yet another unprecedented undertaking for our state. Working closely with our hospitals and health care providers, we will continue to aggressively prepare so that we are ready to act immediately when a vaccine becomes available.
Today we are also providing $10 million in additional support for Maryland food banks as part of our Maryland unites initiative food banks across our state have stepped up during this crisis in a truly inspiring way to help people in need. In order to bolster their efforts, the state invested another $4 million to the Maryland food bank and the capital area food bank. We work together with local jurisdictions to match that investment and with the holiday season approaching today, we’re more than doubling our state commitment for an additional $10 million.
We are investing an additional $2 million in emergency supplemental funds for foster care providers to help support the needs of the youth entrusted to their care. This funding will be used to increase staffing, housing, case management services, food, transportation, and cleaning supplies. Another $2 million in CARES Act funding will enable the Maryland department of human services to increase call handling capacity to extend their daily hours of operations and to add weekend operations specifically to assist in managing the increase in benefit requests and energy assistance programs.
Finally today, we are dedicating $1 million for an innovative wastewater sampling program by the Maryland Department of Health and the Maryland department of the environment to help detect COVID outbreaks in vulnerable populations. This partnership between state and local health departments will test wastewater in public housing settings and correctional facilities across the state. This science-based field-tested program will help provide us more data to detect and respond to outbreaks and to help us save more lives.
The $70 million of new investments I’m announcing today will help us to protect the health and safety of more Marylanders. We’re once again asking our county government partners to do their part as well by utilizing their remaining CARES Act funding ahead of the expiration of those funds in 48 days.
I want to commend Baltimore County on this week’s announcement that $11.5 million in CARES Act funding will be utilized to help public schools prepare to reopen. And to provide additional relief for restaurants. Harford County also announced $2 million in CARES Act funding this week to support local fire department and EMS organizations which have been overwhelmed on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Some counties, however, have not yet allocated the bulk of the assistance funding which has already been provided to them. To help assist small businesses in their communities, the state passed through more than $362 billion in federal CARES Act funding through our smaller counties. While the largest five counties received another $691 million directly from the federal government in CARES Act funding. If money is required by law by the end of the calendar year.
We’re again calling on all 24 jurisdictions to immediately get this funding out the door to the struggling Marylanders and small businesses who need it the most. I’ve always told it to you straight and the sad truth is that the next several months will likely be, by far, the most difficult that we have faced. And I want to continue to remind everyone that this truly is and all-hands-on deck operation.
Unfortunately, we have more tough times ahead of us and it is likely going to get worse before it gets better. But we truly are all in this together. And if we all do our part to rise to this challenge and to meet this moment, we will get through this together. Thank you and with that, I would be happy to take some questions.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: As we’ve said at every one of our 60 press conferences over the last six or nine months or so, the state law provides for local government to make their own decisions. They can be more restrictive. We’re comfortable with decisions we’ve made statewide and we’ve left the flexibility with the counties to make their own decisions. We’re going to continue to track the metrics and make our decisions every day.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We have a universal statewide mask order which has been in effect since the spring and we’ve been calling on our local leaders to help enforce that because they have not been doing a very good job of doing that. But while we put all indoor places and every public place, outdoors, whenever you cannot safely distance and stay six feet apart.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We appointed the task force to meet with stakeholders and people throughout the government to talk about this. There is no question we’re seeing it throughout our department. Suicides are up. Problems with substance abuse, domestic abuse. People are under incredible pressures and this is a problem that we’re trying to address through our health department and through a number of other places. We’re trying to help people as much as we can through our youth programs and through multiple departments.
This is going to continue to be a crisis, the health crisis, mental health crisis and financial crisis.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We see differently from different places. We have our own internal modeling. We work very closely with Johns Hopkins, we’re looking at the Harvard modeling and we get input from some of the smartest public health professionals and scientists and doctors.
The numbers, as you hear, could be much worse than they were in the spring but I don’t want to give a specific number. If you remember back in March, Johns Hopkins was saying we would have more than 12,900 Marylanders dead by June 1st. We thankfully were able to avoid that with a lot of hard work by a lot of people and people really listening to the advice. We’re telling you again that you really can change the trajectory of the numbers. We did have a situation back in the spring where we had our hospitals overloaded. We didn’t have enough ICU beds or ventilators. We had to rent an ice rink because all of the funeral homes and morgues were overloaded. We do not want to be in that situation again.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We had a group call with the Coronavirus Task Force the day before the election, I think. Monday. I haven’t had a conversation with anybody on the Coronavirus Task Force since then. One of the things I’m frustrated about. Look, I understand we just went through a contentious election but it really is becoming a problem in that I think the people in the White House are focused on elections and the people in the Biden Administration don’t have any information and haven’t taken over and they’re in a little bit of a vacuum right now.
States are experiencing the worst part of the crisis and we don’t really know what’s going on at the federal level and we don’t see action out of congress either. Still bickering, still fighting. Still not reaching compromise which is very frustrating to us who are trying to save lives.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Our department of housing and community development, I mentioned earlier that they’ve been able to help 4500 people with rental assistance already. They were out of money. So we put more money in and we’re going to try to get the dollars out the door as fast as we get the applications in. We had a backlog. We’re opening up the application process to help more folks. We want to get it out to them as quickly as we can.
Q (Off Microphone)
SPEAKER: The Maryland Department of Health has been working with the department of environment over the last several months on a pilot program, look at how wastewater may be able to detect the presence of coronavirus in the wastewater. So that allows us to potentially predict or then go back and do more specific testing of the people within the facility. The funding that the governor has dedicated to this project will be very targeted initially. We are working as he indicated with the department of corrections, at the state level, because there has been an impact in the correctional facilities. And also looking at how we can look at coronavirus circulating around a low-income public housing. That’s where the initial work is starting.
Q (Off Microphone)
SPEAKER: I think that the message that we put out earlier this year still stands and as the governor indicated, those metrics and many other counties are higher than what we had indicated. However, it ultimately is the decision of the local school board in conjunction with the local health department. What we would still encourage is that as we balance all of the different actions, we just talked about the mental health impact. Mental health is also important. Even in this circumstance, find a balance of the mental health needs.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Our metrics haven’t changed with the schools. We work together with our local school system to help the superintendent of schools and is doing that on a daily basis. With respect to the wastewater treatment plant, we had done the testing to see if this works before and the studies are done. And now we’re funding it at least on a targeted basis to start with our populations that we thought would be easy to do and that we were forced to do it. It may be something that — if that works out effectively, we would take it to the next level.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I’m not willing to waste any time at all. We will change them if it is an hour or a day. We take action pretty quickly as we have for the past five months. We’re acting aggressively.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I can only reiterate what we’ve said. My goal is to keep as much of our economy open as many people working, and our lives as normal as policy while we’re trying to keep people alive and keep hospitals from overflowing. We’re making the decisions the best we can every single day. I understand the concern of people. I’m one of those people that is concerned. We’re all concerned. None of us wants this to happen.
We’re going to make the decisions we have to make. I don’t know what the definition of a lockdown is. We never really had a lockdown. We didn’t even have a stay at home order. We kept 70% of our economy open the entire time. But might we have to take more restrictive actions over the coming weeks or months? Absolutely, we might.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s a really good question, Tom. We’re trying to deliver the message. Whether or not they’re getting the message is another story. And it is not just the administrations but it is also congress with the turnover and changes and they’re focused on other things. This is a really tough time. PPE money ran out. Stimulus bill was quite a while ago.
I had agreement from the White House — I was hearing — from both sides in congress, inches away from getting — we’re now in November. And the virus is at the worst point ever and we don’t have the money. And I talked to my fellow governors and I talked to some today and I talked to some yesterday. We’re very, very concerned with the continued gridlock, divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington while people’s lives are at stake. There’s mental health and everything else.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: That’s a great question. Thank you for asking that because I am taking my own advice. We actually were hoping to get our family together. I was going to have my three daughters and my three son-in-laws and my four grandkids over to the governor’s mansion for a nice Thanksgiving. And we made the determination to cancel all of those plans. Everybody is going to stay home with their immediate families. First lady and I will be having dinner together by ourselves.
It is exactly what we’re telling people. I don’t know how you implement the types of orders that some of the counties are taking about what people do in their own house. I have been strongly advising people that it is much safer that family gatherings are the most dangerous thing that we have and we’re taking it to heart.
Q (Off Microphone)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Some of the counties didn’t understand how it worked and they were hoping maybe that congress might change the law but the administration would change regs and there were reports by some of you. There was reporting that the county leaders said hey, we want to save this until next year and spend it later. I know you want to but it would be great if we had more time. We have desperate need right now. We’re going to spend every penny and we’re going to encourage them to do so. It is not like there’s excess money laying around that we don’t need. Thank you.