Five years ago, Covid-19 turned communities across the country and here in the County upside down. Government and health leaders had to respond to an unprecedented crisis.
MCM spoke with County Executive Marc Elrich about the challenges he faced and the decisions he made to keep residents safe.
When Covid-19 First Hit
On March 5, 2020, the County learned about the first three cases to hit Maryland. Two of the cases were in Montgomery County.
“We quickly realized there were going to be some serious problems,” Elrich said.
He vividly remembers the unfolding crisis in New York City. Workers took gurneys of dead people from tenement homes. Freezer trucks lined the streets with bodies in them.
“Back then, I just remember thinking to myself that is not going to happen here. I worked a lot with my Health Officer, Dr. Travis Gayles. I was very pointed about giving him more or less free reign on policy. Politicians should not interfere in medical work. We should not try to direct an outcome that suits us politically but has no bearing in science,” Elrich said.
Restrictions Put In Place
That is when Elrich decided to enact strict restrictions that included stay at home orders.
“We had the highest level of cases in Maryland for a little while. But as we started putting measures in place to limit transmission, those numbers started to come down. Within a short period of time, we became the County with the lowest case rates and deaths east of the Mississippi River, and actually east of parts of California. We could see the benefit of what we did,” Elrich explained.
Once county leaders figured out Covid-19 was highly transmissible between people, they moved quickly to stop that contact.
“If we could break the contact, then we could break the spread of Covid-19. So I was very supportive of masking, I was very aggressive about shutdowns in the County. I don’t think we shut down enough,” Elrich said.
“The question back then was: Were people willing to tolerate a certain amount of discomfort and a real disruption in their lives to minimize the spread of Covid-19? My Health Officer was willing to do it, and I was willing. I would often say, every door is an opportunity for Covid-19 to come in, and every opportunity for Covid-19 could leave somebody dead on the other end of it. So I just settled on this is what you have to do. People could see the difference between the County and other places. We weren’t experiencing what was happening in other communities,” Elrich added.
Making Vaccines Available
Once vaccines became available, getting the shots out to the people who needed it the most also became part of the Health Department and Elrich’s strategy. The County established Hubs in the community to provide medical information and needed services. The Hubs helped provide food, medicine, and baby supplies to those in need.
Elrich said he spent millions of dollars on advertisements to encourage residents to get their vaccines. He also said the County partnered with churches and other community groups so they could encourage their members to get vaccines. Building that trust was important.
“Some people may have had a degree of suspicion about government but when your neighbor or your pastor says something, that can make a difference to people. It was important for some residents to hear from people who they were familiar with, and we benefitted from a lot of people volunteering their time,” Elrich said.
Impact On Businesses
While keeping people safe was the primary goal, Elrich knew his decisions would have a profound effect in the community especially among businesses.
“It was hard. We let people do pick up. That meant allowing restaurants to bring in workers to prepare carry out. We allowed restaurants to prepare mixed drinks for carry out. We never allowed that before. Eventually we allowed some businesses to open gradually. We required masks and spacing guidelines. I will say when we did that, we did not see big upticks in Covid-19,” Elrich said.
“But businesses got hit really, really hard. Restaurants got killed because you can’t eat with your mouth closed or when wearing a mask. I feel bad about that, but I feel if we had not done it, there would have been a lot more dead people, and I would have felt a lot worse about that. You can recover money. If people die, you don’t recover them,” Elrich added.
It has taken a few years but the business community has bounced back. Elrich said the number of restaurants in the County has now exceeded the number before Covid-19 struck. That milestone happened last year. However, he said that does not mean every restaurant recovered. Some went out of business. Other owners came in, snatched up the vacant space and reopened a new business.
Impact On Education
Covid-19 also impacted education. Elrich said nobody was prepared for a countywide virtual curriculum.
“It was really disruptive. I think for teachers it was hard to manage time the same way. It was hard for the kids to learn. It is hard to pay attention to a screen. Screens usually entertain children. But getting information off of a screen is a different thing,” Elrich explained.
Lessons Learned
When Elrich reflects back on this time he said he would make the same choices he did back then.
“If confronted by this situation again, I know where I would go on day one. I would not wait. I would not hesitate to do some of the things we did. If anything, we were too impatient. We didn’t know what to do in the initial period. So Covid-19 became a lot more widespread than it should have been. If I was looking at this situation differently, I would not have had the gaps in time before we masked and before we made some of our decisions. I would have made those decisions faster,” Elrich said.
For people who disagree with Elrich’s approach to keep people at home and restrict business activity, he said, “if anybody ever says why did you do that, I would say because it made a difference, and I’m okay with it. Some people lost their businesses but the bigger difference to me was how many people would die. If you could stop people from dying, you should stop it. I think that’s what I tried to do.”
Overall, the County has had more than 2,600 deaths since Covid-19 began. Maryland has had more than 18,000 deaths.
How He Approached The Crisis
Elrich credits his past experiences for helping him get through this crisis.
“I have a pretty Zen approach to life. You have to deal with the hand you are dealt. You can’t mourn about it. It’s really not useful. So you do what you have to do. There is no other real choice. I spent a lot of time talking to doctors and people who were involved, so I understood what I was dealing with. I tried to keep myself informed,” Elrich explained.
Community Came Together
He is extremely proud of the people in the community that stepped up during this time.
“The people who I thought were amazing were the service workers and the health care workers who made these sacrifices. Our hospitals and our doctors’ offices, the County’s health clinics, police, and firefighters, they did everything they were supposed to do and would have done before Covid-19. They put their lives on the line knowing that if they slipped up, if their mask was not on right, they could end up getting Covid-19,” Elrich said.
He said the people on the front lines did their jobs, and he will forever be grateful to them.
