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Maryland to Provide Racial Breakdowns for Coronavirus Data

Hogan’s Latest Coronavirus Action: Racial Data, Baltimore-Washington Corridor Deemed COVID-19 Hotspot, Strike Teams for Nursing Homes

Gov. Larry Hogan announced at a press conference in Baltimore Tuesday that he’s directed Maryland Department of Health’s Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities to start offering racial and ethnic breakdowns for all of the state’s coronavirus cases.

The announcement comes after recent national reports indicating the coronavirus is hitting minor communities harder than it’s hitting white communities.

The Atlantic reports, “Black people, at 46 percent, and Latinos, at 39 percent, are about twice as likely as white people, at 21 percent, to view the coronavirus as a major threat to their health.”

Hogan was in Baltimore touring Maryland’s field hospital site at the Baltimore Convention Center. For the first time, Hogan was seen wearing a cloth face mask in public, which he said was made by prisoners at the Maryland Correctional Facility.

Hogan announced that the White House has deemed the Baltimore-Washington corridor a “hotspot” for the coronavirus.

“Over the past two weeks I have been sounding the alarm with the president, the vice president, members of the president’s task force, and other top administration officials, and I’m pleased to report that we have succeeded in convincing the Trump administration to designate the greater Baltimore-Washington corridor as a priority,” Hogan said.

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Montgomery County is included in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, Hogan said.

Hogan thanked Marylanders who have been adhering to his “Stay at Home” executive order announced on March 30, and condemned businesses and people that are violating the order. Hogan announced a new executive action that allows local health departments to modify a businesses operation or shut  the business down.

Because there are cases and clusters of the coronaviruses in 90 nursing homes throughout the state, Hogan also announced the implementation of strike teams for nursing homes.

These teams will consist of “members of the National Guard, representatives of local and state health departments, and EMS clinicians, as well as doctors and nurses from local hospital systems.” They can be activated by nursing homes, local health departments, as well as Maryland Department of Health.

There are three teams that can be activated: testing teams, assistance teams, and clinical teams.

According to Hogan, the COVID-19 statewide peak is coming, but the early and drastic action taken in Maryland to combat the spread of coronavirus has been effective.

A Tweet Play-By-Play of Hogan’s Press Conference

Here are live tweets summarizing what Hogan talked about in Tuesday afternoons press briefing in Baltimore.

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