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March 28, 2023

The Chestertown Spy

An Educational News Source for Chestertown Maryland

News Maryland News

Hogan Issues State of Emergency, Calls on Feds For More Decisive Action on Vaccines, Treatments

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Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) proclaimed a 30-day state of emergency Tuesday morning, stating that Maryland will see the pandemic reach its worst points in January through early February.

“…[T]he truth is that the next four to six weeks will be the most challenging time of the entire pandemic,” Hogan said.

The Maryland Department of Health reported an additional 311 hospitalizations Tuesday morning, pushing the state to a new peak of 3,057 in total. Hogan said that state health officials project that “could reach more than 5,000” — more than 250% higher than the state’s previous peak of 1,952 hospitalized COVID patients.

Tuesday also saw nearly 14,500 confirmed cases and 48 deaths. The state’s positivity rate rests at 27.44%.

“Right now we’re experiencing the winter surge that we anticipated, together with the convergence of the delta variant, the flu season and the omicron variant which has spread like wildfire throughout the country and around the world,” Hogan said.

Under the proclamation Hogan has the ability to “take urgent, short-term actions to combat the current crisis,” he said.

Hogan also issued two executive orders Tuesday.

The first order gives Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader the authority to direct and expedite the transfer of patients between hospitals and create alternate care facilities, allows for interstate reciprocity to let health care workers licensed in nearby states to practice in Maryland, lets inactive practitioners provide care services without renewing their licenses and gives graduate nurses the greenlight to provide care in hospitals and other health care settings.

Hogan’s second order expands the state’s emergency medical workers by giving the executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and the chairperson of the State Emergency Medical Services Board the authority to suspend portions of state code to allow more people to practice on the frontlines.

Additionally, the governor announced that he has deployed 1,000 members of the Maryland National Guard to aid local health officials in testing and transporting patients.

Access to testing has been front of mind for many Marylanders who have waited hours in lines after the holiday. The demand for testing portends increased case rates, and potentially hospitalizations.

According to Dr. Theodore Delbridge, the executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, Tuesday’s hospitalization rate represents a 100% increase in the number of hospitalizations from Dec. 22 — only two weeks ago. He also noted that nine hospitals have begun operating under crisis standards of care, with three more on the verge of doing so.

“As of yesterday afternoon, more than 600 patients — people — were waiting in emergency departments for their turn to be admitted to a hospital bed,” Delbridge said.

He added that nearly every Maryland emergency department is requesting that EMS teams reroute patients to other hospitals to try to mitigate patient overflow.

“Of course, that’s not possible when every nearby emergency department is also requesting no new patients,” said Delbridge.

Hogan continued to push for vaccinations, adding that booster shots are now available to Maryland children aged 12 through 15 five months after they received their second dose.

The governor said that “nearly 75%” of people who tested positive and “nearly 84%” of those who died from COVID-related complications in 2021 were not fully vaccinated.

“The vaccines are safe and effective, and they’re keeping people out of the hospital and saving lives,” Hogan said.

While Hogan declared a state of emergency, he did not mandate statewide masking.

Hogan said that masking mandates can result in “the opposite effect.”

“I’m not sure the people that are refusing to wear masks are going to wear one anyway. We don’t have the ability to enforce it, so we’re just strongly encouraging people to wear the damn mask, but we don’t need a mandate to … force businesses to do that we’re encouraging them to do so,” he said.

Rather, the governor, who was scheduled to attend a call with the White House shortly after the news conference, said that he would be pushing the federal government to shorten the length of time between second doses of vaccines and boosters, increase the availability of monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic clinical treatment and to expedite the approval and distribution of at-home rapid tests and the newly FDA-approved Pfizer antiviral pills.

“All of the emergency actions that we’re taking today are to keep our hospitals from overflowing to keep our kids in school and to keep Maryland open for business and we will continue to take whatever actions are necessary in the very difficult days and weeks ahead,” Hogan said. “But we also need the federal government to take decisive action.”

By Hannah Gaskill

As COVID Booms, Hogan Announces New Safety Measures, Schools Chief Defends Planned Return to Class

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As the state’s COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates continue to skyrocket, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) implemented new orders aimed at state employees Monday, with plans to announce further emergency measures later this week.

“Today we are taking another series of actions to address the current surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations, and we will continue to take every action necessary to help our hospitals and keep people safe,” Hogan said in a statement Monday morning.

Hogan announced Monday morning that the state will provide two hours of paid leave to incentivize government employees to get their COVID-19 booster shots. This policy will be applied retroactively to employees who have proof they’ve been boosted.

State agencies will also be allowed to implement hybrid in-person and telework policies. “Front-facing agency services” have been instructed to operate as usual, according to Monday’s news release.

Additionally, all state employees and visitors are now required to be masked while in buildings owned or leased by the state.

The state’s largest employee union — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — which reached a new contract with the Hogan administration on New Year’s Eve, said officials had earlier rejected policies on universal masking and screening during the collective bargaining process.

On Monday, the state reported 14,251 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours — and 26 additional deaths.

Almost 90,000 new COVID test results were reported Monday, after hours-long lines snaked around testing sites across the state over the weekend. Maryland’s current seven-day average positivity rate for reported COVID tests is 26.87%.

According to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard, which had been knocked offline following a cyberattack waged against the agency last month, 2,746 hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients — nearly doubling the state’s previous peak seen in January 2021.

Several hospitals in the state have shifted to “crisis standards of care,” which give legal and ethical guidelines to health care providers when they have too many patients and not enough resources to care for them all, The Associated Press reported.

The House Health and Government Operations Committee and the Senate Education, Environment and Health Affairs Committee will hold a joint hearing on Jan. 13 to question department officials about the nature of the cyberattack.

Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader was slated to provide an update to lawmakers on the state response to the surge in cases during a briefing of the Senate Vaccine Oversight Workgroup on Monday afternoon but requested that the meeting be postponed to Wednesday, citing “weather-related response activities.”

After a spokesperson for Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) alerted the press that the Senate meeting was canceled, the governor’s office announced that Hogan will hold a briefing to discuss COVID-19 emergency actions Tuesday morning.

Last week, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore City) issued a statement criticizing what she characterized as Hogan’s inaction in response to the pandemic’s surge following a Baltimore Sun report that a state-contracted company mishandled vaccine doses.

“Our overwhelmed hospitals have called on the state to declare a public health emergency. These calls have gone unanswered by the Department of Health,” Jones tweeted. “Now, we are learning they’ve mishandled the vaccination of over a thousand Marylanders and refused to notify them in a timely manner. Governor Hogan needs to treat this like the public health crisis it has once again become.”

Schools chief defends planned return

As students prepare to return to school after winter break, some school districts are reinforcing their commitment to in-person learning while some teachers and parents have been demanding a return to virtual learning in the midst of the rapidly spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus.

In a press conference on Monday, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises emphasized the importance of keeping schools open, especially for the most vulnerable students for whom school is one of their only safe havens.

“The decision to return to in-person learning is grounded in one to two plus years of experience and consultation with medical professionals,” Santelises said.

The decision aligns with U.S. Department of Education guidance and State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury, who has repeatedly spoken in favor of keeping schools open. Montgomery County Public Schools, the state’s largest school system, also intends to return to classrooms after the holidays, though that has also been delayed by winter weather. In mid-December, Prince George’s County Public Schools made the decision to shift to virtual learning until after the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Santelises on Monday announced additional safety measures, including to require all staff — vaccinated and unvaccinated — to participate in weekly tests for COVID-19 through the month of January. All high school students will be offered testing on Wednesday, one day before they return to school. And the school district will also offer more ways for families to submit COVID-19 testing consent forms, such as through email or other online portals, Santelises continued.

Elected state officials, including the senate president, showed their support for the decision on Monday, joining Santelises at the press conference.

“We have multiple layers of detection, prevention and treatment that exist to make our schools some of the safest places in our city — no other sectors in our society right now are shutting down,” Ferguson said.

By Hannah Gaskill, Bruce DePuyt, and Elizabeth Shwe

Hogan Tests Positive for COVID-19, State Data on Overall Case Rates Still Unavailable as Hospitalizations Rise

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Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) tweeted Monday morning that he’s tested positive for COVID-19.

The governor, who is vaccinated and boosted, tweeted that he was “feeling fine at the moment.” He encouraged others to get initial vaccinations or booster shots as soon as they are able to.

Hogan’s rapid test result — a PCR test result remains pending — is one of the only publicly known current COVID cases in the state; the Maryland Department of Health has not disseminated data on new COVID-19 cases, mortality or testing since early December as a result of a “network security incident.”

The state has continued to release hospitalization and vaccination data. On Sunday, there were 1,345 currently hospitalized COVID patients, including 301 people in intensive care units. The number of hospitalizations has increased dramatically since Nov. 1, when 568 people were hospitalized with COVID.

On Friday, hospitals in the state began to suspend some elective surgeries that require an overnight stay to deal with overcrowding; if the state’s hospitalizations surpass 1,500, additional policies to free up bed space will go into effect.

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Hogan said his administration is focusing on COVID hospitalization and death rates.

“We’ve got hospitalizations up about 150% over the past two weeks, and we’re taking steps to provide more support for our hospitals, and we’re putting more into testing,” Hogan told anchor Bret Baier on a broadcast that aired Sunday morning.

The governor also said he was anticipating “probably the worst surge we’ve seen in our hospitals throughout the entire crisis” as a result of the omicron variant that is believed to be rapidly spreading.

Also during the Fox News appearance, Hogan slammed the decision by the Prince George’s County school board to shift back to virtual learning due to an increase in positive tests. The governor said he has no plans to reimpose pandemic lockdowns amid concerns over surging infection rates.

The Hogan administration has not provided a timeline for when COVID data will once again be published on the Department of Health website.

The security breach involved “unauthorized activity involving multiple network infrastructure systems” and “servers were taken offline to protect the network,” according to the agency.

The state has also said it is “actively engaged with both state and federal law enforcement partners as part of an ongoing criminal investigation” related to the network breach.

A statement on the Department of Health website said there is “no evidence that any data was compromised.”

By Danielle E. Gaines

Md. General Assembly Overrides Gov. Hogan’s Veto of Congressional Redistricting Plan

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Heading into the special session this week, two congressional redistricting proposals were on the table: one put forward by Democratic legislative leaders’ Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission, and another from Republican Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission.

On Monday, lawmakers advanced the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission (LRAC) proposal out of the House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee and didn’t move the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission (MCRC) redistricting plan forward.

On Tuesday, the House of Delegates approved the LRAC proposal following an unsuccessful attempt by Republicans to amend it by replacing its map with the map proposed by the MCRC.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed the LRAC redistricting plan after Republican senators made a similar attempt to amend it.

Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) pushes a veto stamp onto the congressional redistricting proposal passed by the Democratic supermajority in the General Assembly. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines, Maryland Matters

On Thursday, Hogan vetoed the LRAC redistricting plan at a press conference at 2:15 p.m.

And the General Assembly swiftly overrode Hogan’s veto, roughly an hour and a half after he announced it. The House voted 96-41 in favor of an override, the Senate supported the move 32-14.

Hogan’s veto was not a surprise. The governor had promised to oppose any redistricting proposal that differed from the one put forward by his Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission, a panel that included three Republicans, three Democrats and three unaffiliated voters. Hogan appointed the three co-chairs of that commission.

Democrats hold a veto-proof majority in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. And they also overrode Hogan’s vetoes of several measures from the 2021 legislative session during the special session.

Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) convened the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission, which they are members of.

The debate over Maryland’s congressional maps won’t end with the override votes. Fair Maps Maryland, an organization with ties to Hogan, announced plans for a lawsuit challenging the congressional redistricting plan just moments after the state Senate approved it Wednesday evening.

Hogan said he opted to veto the maps Thursday rather than waiting until the end of the legislative session to “allow the court process to begin.”

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced a lawsuit challenging the Texas’ redistricting plan that the state’s Republican-led legislature approved in October. Garland charged that plan would disempower Black and Latino voters.

Hogan echoed Sen. Stephen S. Hershey (R-Middle Shore), who suggested on Wednesday that Garland should also scrutinize the Maryland General Assembly’s redistricting plan.

“He needs to take a look at exactly what we’re doing here in Maryland with respect to the same reason that he’s suing the state of Texas,” Hershey said Wednesday.

The LRAC map includes two majority Black districts — the 4th and the 7th — and creates a 5th Congressional District with a Black plurality for a total of three districts with a majority people of color.

In the current congressional map, the 4th and 7th are majority Black and the 5th has a white plurality. The Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission map would have included one majority Black district and three additional districts with a majority people of color.

“These gerrymandered maps will be challenged in both the federal and the state courts,” Hogan said Thursday.

The congressional map adopted by the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission. Screenshot from the Maryland General Assembly website.

Democratic lawmakers have defended the LRAC congressional map. Senate President Pro Tem Melony G. Griffith (D-Prince George’s), a member of the LRAC, said during Wednesday’s floor debate that the commission was “very mindful” of complying with the Voting Rights Act.

“I’m confident that we have provided the opportunity for minority voters to vote for their preferred candidate, as we intended,” Griffith said.

While Republicans have highlighted the fact that the MCRC aimed to minimize county splits in its congressional redistricting proposal, Democratic lawmakers have said compactness is secondary to compliance with the Voting Rights Act and minimizing population variances.

The legislative panel also aimed to keep as many voters in current districts as possible while the MCRC opted to not consider existing districts at all when drawing up maps.

“Maryland’s geography is unique, and our population is varied,” Senate Majority Leader Nancy J. King (D-Montgomery) said Wednesday. “Taking all that into consideration, I am confident that this map is a fair one, and one that reflects the lived experience of Marylanders.”

Just one Democratic lawmaker in either the House of Delegates or the Senate voted to sustain Hogan’s veto: Del. Gabriel T. Acevero (D-Montgomery). Acevero said in an interview that “gerrymandering is wrong no matter the party.”

Acevero said that, despite his objections to the LRAC map, he didn’t find the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission map any better.

“The commission was pretty much chosen by Hogan,” Acevero said. “It’s not independent.”

Acevero said all lawmakers and Hogan should support the federal For The People Act, which would require nonpartisan redistricting commissions across the country. That legislation, sponsored by Maryland Rep. John P. Sarbanes (D), passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year but has been blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

“What we need is both parties calling on the U.S. Senate to abolish or reform the filibuster and pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which does away with partisan redistricting,” Acevero said. “I believe in democracy and I think the democratic thing to do is for senators to do their job.”

Asked if he had received or worried about blowback from his fellow Democrats, Acevero replied, “Come on, man. I’m always going to do what I think is the right thing.”

The General Assembly isn’t done with redistricting, either: Lawmakers will tackle state legislative redistricting when they return for their regular session in January. As with congressional redistricting, lawmakers will weigh proposals from both the MCRC and the LRAC.

The LRAC hasn’t released a legislative redistricting proposal yet.

Like the MCRC’s congressional proposal, that panel’s legislative redistricting proposal received an “A” rating from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which scored the plan based on competitiveness, partisan fairness and geographic features. The LRAC congressional map received an “F” based on those criteria. Democratic lawmakers took issues with Princeton’s scoring system because it doesn’t factor in Voting Rights Act compliance.

Constitutionally, Hogan can’t veto the General Assembly’s legislative maps, but his proposed maps become law if the General Assembly doesn’t pick an alternative within the first half of the 2022 legislative session.

By Bennett Leckrone, Josh Kurtz, and Danielle E. Gaines

Hogan Makes Booster Shots Available to Nursing Home Residents, People With Health Issues

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Marylanders age 65 and over who live in nursing homes and other congregate care facilities became eligible for COVID-19 booster shots on Tuesday, under an order from Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R).

Seniors who live in assisted living facilities, residential drug treatment centers, and group homes for people with disabilities also became eligible for the shots, which health experts have said can bolster protection against the coronavirus.

Gov. Larry Hogan

Hogan issued the order after the state’s Antibody Testing Program determined that more than 60% of vaccinated residents had “some form of waning immunity over time, and showed that as many as one-in-three are now particularly vulnerable.”

He also cited an Israeli study which concluded that a booster — typically a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines — led to an 11-fold reduction in infections and a ten-fold decrease in severe illness.

“All of the evidence makes it abundantly clear that we cannot afford to delay taking decisive action to protect our most vulnerable citizens,” Hogan said.

The state’s research tested more than 500 nursing home residents.

The state Health Department also issued guidance on Tuesday ordering all pharmacies and health providers to provide a booster shot “without any need for a prescription or a doctor’s order to anyone who considers themselves to be immunocompromised,” Hogan said.

“No one in this category should be turned away from receiving a booster,” he added.

The governor said Maryland has a strong supply of vaccine and does not anticipate reopening mass vaccination sites when the general public becomes eligible for booster shots.

A potential White House hopeful in 2024, Hogan continued his criticism of the federal government, saying that states “have had to operate without clear guidance” from the CDC or FDA as to when booster shots will be recommended for people under age 65 and those without health conditions.

“The limited guidance we have received has been confusing and contradictory,” Hogan said, echoing complaints he made on a Sunday talk show, “and it is still unclear when and how more people will become eligible.”

According to the state Department of Health, an average of 17 of every 100,000 Marylanders tested positive over the last week, a 15% decrease since the beginning of September.

Hogan said his administration is “proud” that Maryland is unlike the states that have “spiking numbers… with their case-rates surging out of control and their hospitals overflowing.”

According to the CDC, community transmission of COVID is “high” in 19 of Maryland’s 24 jurisdiction, and “substantial” in the remaining five. 

Hogan also announced a $3 million “Community COVID-19 Vaccination Project,” which he described as a “door-to-door canvassing effort to directly engage Marylanders living in areas with low vaccination rates and in effort to encourage more vaccinations.”

The project will also provide health education in “at-risk neighborhoods.”

“The vaccines are the single most effective way to protect people from severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths,” he said, adding that only 0.2% of fully-vaccinated Marylanders have been hospitalized.

At a time when right-wing media personalities and outlets are touting unproven treatments, Hogan encouraged people who test positive and begin to experience symptoms to consult with their health-care provider about monoclonal antibody therapy.

“These monoclonal antibodies are the only approved and effective treatment for COVID-positive individuals who are symptomatic but not yet severe enough to require hospitalization,” Hogan said.

Maryland has completed more than 10,000 infusions at 30 facilities, Hogan said, an effort that has cut hospitalizations and deaths significantly.

By Bruce DePuyt

Gov. Hogan Orders Assessment of Ventilation, Air Filtration in School Buildings

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Governor Larry Hogan today announced that he is directing the State Superintendent of Schools and the Interagency Commission on School Construction to conduct an immediate statewide assessment of ventilation and air filtration in Maryland public school buildings.

The governor made the announcement at Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Public Works:

“I know we are all pleased to see students returning to in-person instruction in every school system across the state. Unfortunately, this week, schools all over Baltimore City, including 31 just yesterday, had to dismiss students early due to the lack of proper air conditioning.

“It’s unbelievable to me that this is still happening after the Comptroller and I have worked together for the last six years to push to get every school air conditioned, and to provide record funding for every school to be air conditioned, and our nonstop efforts to hold schools accountable.

“We were successful in requiring Baltimore City to reluctantly create a plan to finally bring air conditioning to all their schools, even against fierce opposition from legislative leaders. But in spite of them putting plans together, the work was not actually completed.

“We established a Healthy Schools Facilities Fund to provide additional state-funded grants to public schools specifically to make urgently needed emergency air conditioning and heating upgrades. Baltimore City returned the money to the state after failing to spend it on the improvements.

“Our administration has provided seven years of record funding to our schools—all of our schools across the state and even more to Baltimore City schools. Among the 100 largest school systems in America, Baltimore is the third highest funded school system, which makes it even more inexcusable.

“Earlier this year, we enacted a historic school construction plan with record funding to make sure that all school buildings across the entire state were modern, safe, efficient, and air conditioned. Protecting students from the sweltering heat is critically important, and city leaders have continued to fail in this regard. But the problem goes far beyond that now because of COVID-19.

“Our public health experts have repeatedly stressed that proper ventilation is a critical tool to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. The CDC specifically recommended maximizing building ventilation and improving the level of air filtration as much as possible through the use of high-efficiency HEPA filtration units.

“And we have provided more than $3 billion in additional federal dollars in relief funding to the school systems in Maryland specifically for pandemic-related costs, including improvements to HVAC and ventilation, and filtration systems for safer school buildings for our kids. And yet, even with those billions of dollars to address these issues and with the school year already underway, city schools are still unairconditioned, and it’s unclear even which schools or school systems have properly utilized all these billions in funding.

“After months of requesting this information, we’re no longer asking. So today, I’m directing the State Superintendent of Schools and the Interagency Commission on School Construction to immediately provide us a report on ventilation and air filtration systems, district by district and school by school, and we will be holding school systems accountable for these financial resources and the way that they have been utilized to ensure that safe and healthy environments are in our school buildings for all of our kids.”

Experts Support Mask Mandates for Students but Say Vaccine Mandates Will Be More Difficult

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As many students across Maryland return to school this week while the delta variant continues to drive the state’s COVID-19 case rates higher, requiring masks inside school buildings is the “lowest hanging fruit” schools could take to protect against the coronavirus, public health experts told lawmakers on Monday.

“Children with masks on play just as hard and learn just as well as children without masks, but they’re protected from acquiring COVID and spreading it to others,” Karen L. Kotloff, a professor of pediatrics in the University of Maryland Medical System, told the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee.

“I think that is the lowest hanging fruit and the easiest intervention that can be done,” she continued. “Masks are easy.”

Meanwhile, other measures such as requiring that students and teachers to get vaccinated or for students to maintain physical distance in classrooms are more difficult, she continued.

Mandating masks is a low-cost way to reduce COVID-19 transmission rates, said Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Monday’s legislative meeting came after the Maryland State Board of Education passed a universal mask mandate for public schools in a hastily-scheduled meeting last week. Previously, the decision to issue masking mandates for students, teachers and staff was left to local school boards in reopening decisions to be approved by Maryland State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury.

By law, the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review (AELR) has to approve the State Board of Education’s emergency regulation for it to go into effect. The committee is slated to vote on the matter at a public meeting on Sept. 14, allowing some school systems to start the school year without requiring masks.

Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan (R) has the ability to waive the 10-business-day waiting period required before the AELR committee can vote on the emergency regulation, but Hogan said Monday that he does not plan to do so.

“I’m not going to create a state of emergency to waive the ability for legislators to hear from the citizens, they just have to do the process that they normally do,” Hogan told WBFF-TV.

Republican lawmakers also implored the committee to not rush the 10-day review period to allow for a deliberative process.

“We have serious concerns regarding the State Board of Education’s unprecedented usurpation of local control in mandating masking for students across Maryland,” a statement from the House Minority Caucus said.

During the Monday briefing, Sen. Jason C. Gallion (R-Cecil and Harford) suggested that only children with underlying medical conditions should wear N95s — tight-fitting, high-filtration medical masks — “instead of making all children wear these cloth masks.”

But Kotloff highlighted that healthy children could also contract the coronavirus.

“You don’t have to have an underlying condition to have a fatal COVID infection, and so how do you know which child that’s going to be … to protect that child’s life?” she said. Furthermore, the more a virus passes back and forth among a population, the more a virus can mutate and become more virulent, she continued.

“Pretty much anything that can happen to an adult can happen to a child,” Kotloff said. Longer-term effects of contracting the coronavirus can also afflict children, such as cognitive impairments, fatigue and chronic respiratory issues.

Nationally, the number of children with COVID-19 grew from 26,000 to 200,000 in the last week, according to Kotloff.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel) questioned whether it was a good policy to have a “one size fits” approach if different areas in the state have different transmission rates.

But Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George’s) underscored that every county in the state currently has a high or substantial transmission rate of 50-100 or more cases per 100,000.

“When everything is substantial, then I think it makes sense that the policy is fairly uniform,” Sell said. “When things come down, people can make some more of those nuanced decisions at lower levels.”

Mandating Vaccinations?

Montgomery and Prince George’s counties public school systems are requiring teachers and staff to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or to undergo weekly tests.

But mandating vaccines for children will be harder than mandating masks, said Daniel Salmon, the director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. If a vaccine mandate is implemented before it has widespread public support, it risks backlash which can significantly undermine the immunization effort.

However, the bar is different for teachers and staff, he continued. “That’s a workplace mandate, which is different. And teachers get to choose whether or not they want to be teachers and where they work and it’s an occupational hazard, so I think it’s a lower bar,” he said.

When people feel forced to get inoculated, “that’s frightening for people,” Kotloff said. Allowing people to express their fears about the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as informing them of the science is the best way to move forward, she continued.

By Elizabeth Shwe

Hogan, Dem Leaders Announce $400M Initiative to Expand Broadband Access

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Maryland officials are ramping up their efforts to close the state’s digital divide, with Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) and Democratic legislative leaders announcing a new program and workgroup aimed at making broadband more accessible to Marylanders Friday.

Hogan, alongside House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) announced the state’s new Connect Maryland initiative to boost broadband access at a Friday event in Snow Hill.

That initiative includes an additional $100 million in funding on top of the $300 million from the American Rescue Plan Act that Hogan, Ferguson and Jones agreed to send toward broadband investments earlier this year. The initiative also includes a bipartisan workgroup made up of municipal and county officials, along with members of the General Assembly, that will look at how to use the $400 million in dedicated broadband funding.

Hogan said the new initiative will be “transformative” in improving broadband access across the state.

“The COVID pandemic has illustrated just how critical a lifeline high speed internet access is to our lives and livelihoods, whether it’s for school work, telehealth or just staying in touch with our families,” Hogan said.

The Maryland General Assembly passed legislation, sponsored in the House by Del. Brooke E. Lierman (D-Baltimore City) and in the Senate by Sen. Sarah K. Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel), during the 2021 legislative session to create a statewide broadband office. That legislation aims to ensure “98% connectivity to universal, affordable, reliable broadband Internet by December 31, 2025,” and that all Marylanders have access to reliable internet by the end of 2026, according to an analysis by the Department of Legislative Services.

Jones said federal relief funding will be key to building out broadband in the coming years.

“All of this isn’t possible without funding,” Jones said. “‘Last mile’ installation costs for broadband range from $35,000 to $70,000 per mile, which can amount to up to $7,000 to connect a single household. With hundreds of thousands of households lacking a broadband connection or even a computer or tablet to access the internet, the costs are worth the investment.”

Hogan and legislative leaders also launched a statewide broadband subsidy program to help low-income Marylanders pay for high-speed internet. To qualify for the Maryland Emergency Broadband Benefit Subsidy Program, Marylanders will need to have been approved for the Federal Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.

The federal program provides a discount of up to $50 per month for qualifying households. Maryland’s subsidy program will mean that those households can receive up to $65 per month when state and federal assistance is combined.

In order for a household to be eligible for the subsidy program, at least one member of the household must meet one of the following requirements:

  • Have an income that is at or below 135% of federal poverty guidelines or participates in certain assistance programs like SNAP, Medicaid or Lifeline
  • Be approved to receive benefits under the free and reduced-price school lunch program or the school breakfast program for the 2019-2020 school year or the 2020-2021 school year.
  • Received a federal Pell grant during the current award year
  • Experienced a “substantial loss of income due to job loss or furlough since Feb. 29, 2020 and the household had a 2020 income of below $99,000 for individual filers or $198,000 for joint filers
  • Meet the eligibility requirements for a participating Internet Service Provider’s existing low-income or COVID-19 assistance program.

By Bennett Leckrone

In Closing MACo Remarks, Hogan Reflects on Counties’ Role in Combating COVID

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In his penultimate gubernatorial speech at the annual Maryland Association of Counties summer conference, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) touted the state’s high vaccination rate and pandemic relief funding — and urged counties to quickly distribute that money to residents who need it.

Closing out the MACo summer conference at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center in Ocean City Saturday, Hogan outlined a slew of relief measures the state has undertaken from the onset of the pandemic, including the emergency funding and tax breaks in the RELIEF Act passed earlier this year.

“It has offered a real lifeline to those hardest-hit, families who are struggling just to get by and small businesses who are desperately trying to stay afloat,” he said.

He also cautioned that, while counties have recently received rent relief funding from the federal government, some of that money has been slow to get to residents and businesses.

“I just can’t emphasize enough how important it is for you to try to get this relief out to the people that need it most as quickly as possible,” he said.

Some county officials have blamed federal red tape and cumbersome applications for slow progress on distributing rent relief funding. Hogan’s statewide protections for tenants, which allowed for an affirmative defense in failure-to-pay rent eviction filings, expired earlier this month despite calls from local leaders and advocates to renew them.

After three days of policy panels and partying, the MACo summer conference traditionally ends on Saturday with a speech from the governor. Often the platform is used to unveil new proposals or for political messaging.

Caroline County Commissioner Wilbur Levengood Jr. (R), the president of MACo, accidentally began to introduce Hogan, who is thought to have White House ambitions, as “the 62nd president…governor of the state of Maryland.” He laughed at the mistake.

During his speech, Hogan underscored the partnership between the state and county governments in Maryland over the past year and a half. He said counties and the state worked together to ramp up the state’s hospital surge capacity, procure and distribute personal protective equipment, complete millions of COVID-19 tests and undertake a massive vaccination campaign that has led to Maryland’s high statewide vaccination rate.

“It’s never been more important to have the collaboration and the partnership that we’ve had over the past 18 months,” he said.

The governor went on to say that transportation officials will be rolling out a new consolidated transportation program that will include funding for expanding Route 90 near Ocean City — a project he described as both a boon for public safety and the local economy.

Hogan also highlighted the state’s latest $400 million broadband expansion effort, the Connect Maryland initiative, which he announced alongside legislative leaders Friday. Broadband access, made more salient than ever by the COVID-19 pandemic, was among the most discussed topics at the 2021 MACo summer conference.

While in past years Hogan has occasionally slammed legislation from the General Assembly in his closing speech at MACo, this year’s speech mostly focused on state aid to counties and pandemic recovery. Other than teasing the transportation plan and mentioning his desire to focus on Maryland’s long-term public health and economic well-being, the governor offered no policy prescriptions or initiatives for his final 16 months in office.

Hogan lauded local officials and health care workers for their service throughout the pandemic.

“I’m so proud of the people of Maryland, and I’m grateful for the partnership with the Maryland Association of Counties,” Hogan said. “We are ready to come back from this pandemic stronger and better than ever before.”

By Bennett Leckrone

Hogan, Biden Target Vaccination Rates at Nursing Homes with New Policies

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Frustrated by the slow pace of employee vaccinations at some Maryland nursing homes and a small number of hospitals, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) announced on Wednesday that workers will soon be required to show proof of protection from COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing.

An executive order that Hogan signed will take effect on Sept. 1 and will apply to all 227 of Maryland’s nursing homes.

“We are concerned that the delta variant surge has led to an increase in infections among staff at nursing homes, which has been a consistent source of outbreaks,” the governor said.

Hogan also said the state will be “redoubling our enforcement actions” for nursing homes that do not comply or which “persistently fail to report their vaccination data.”

The state is doubling fines and increasing civil penalties for recalcitrant operators, the governor said.

While 79% of all nursing home staff have been vaccinated — and 18 facilities are at 95% or higher — others have lagged significantly.

For weeks leading up to Hogan’s announcement, the state health department has issued lists of the “Top 10” and “Bottom 10” skilled nursing home facilities as ranked by staff vaccination rates.

On Monday, the lowest-scoring facility on the state’s list, Oakwood Care Center in Middle River, reported that just 40% of its staff had been vaccinated. The tenth-worst nursing home had a vaccination rate of 59%. More than two dozen failed to report data, according to health officials.

Hogan called the failure to get staff vaccinated “unacceptable.” He accused unvaccinated workers of “endangering the lives of nursing home residents.”

The governor’s order also requires all staff in all Maryland hospitals to receive their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by September 1 or face mandatory testing.

In a statement, Bob Atlas, the head of the Maryland Hospital Association, noted that Hogan’s order would apply only to five percent of state’s medical workforce.

“On June 7, two and a half months before the Governor’s mandate, Maryland hospitals took this step to ensure the safety of their patients, employees and communities,” he said.

“Hospitals that employ approximately 95% of hospital workers in the state already have instituted a mandate or stated an intention to require COVID-19 vaccination for all employees and clinical team members.”

Hogan acknowledged that the University of Maryland Medical System, Johns Hopkins Medicine, MedStar, and GBMC Healthcare have already “led by example.”

“But not every hospital has taken action and some continue to have far too many unvaccinated health care workers, needlessly exposing their vulnerable patients… to COVID-19 and the delta variant,” he added.

Joseph DeMattos, Jr., head of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland, praised the governor for his action, saying, “your announcement today will save lives.”

DeMattos said the state faces “several challenging weeks” battling a delta variant surge “that promises to be extremely challenging.”

As Hogan continues to flirt with a potential presidential bid in 2024, he stepped up his criticism of the White House on Wednesday, calling on the Biden administration to immediately make booster shots available for seniors and and people with compromised immune systems, seek full FDA approval of vaccines, and “expedite” approval of vaccines for children age 5-11.

Biden announces federal efforts

Just after Hogan’s press conference on Wednesday, President Biden announced at a White House press conference that nursing homes will be required to ensure staffers are vaccinated against COVID-19, or risk losing federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars.

Under the new nursing home policy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will develop regulations to require vaccinations of nursing home staffers as a condition of participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs.

“I’m using the power of the federal government as a payer of health care costs to ensure we reduce those risks for our most vulnerable seniors,” Biden said during the news conference detailing new federal actions.

“If you visit, live or work in a nursing home, you should not be at a high risk of contracting COVID from unvaccinated employees,” Biden added.

The new federal mandate is the latest vaccine requirement from the Biden administration. The Department of Veterans Affairs has required health care workers to get vaccinated, and all federal workers must either prove they have been vaccinated or face masking and testing requirements.

The nursing home vaccination requirement that Biden announced Wednesday will apply to staffers in 15,000 facilities, which employ approximately 1.3 million workers and serve approximately 1.6 million residents, according to the White House.

Biden acknowledged that while he has limited authority to require COVID-19 vaccines, he will be looking for additional ways to boost vaccination rates.

He praised governors and mayors — including those in Maryland— for enacting certain vaccine requirements, and said the federal government will be covering all costs related to National Guard missions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 133,000 nursing home residents and nearly 2,000 nursing home staffers have died as a result of COVID-19 infections.

The Biden administration also announced a plan Wednesday to begin offering COVID-19 booster shots to Americans starting Sept. 20, with the scheduling of the additional shot to be based on when a person was fully vaccinated.

The new round of jabs will be extended to those who received the two-dose vaccine from either Pfizer or Moderna, and can be taken eight months after an individual’s second dose.

The more than 13 million Americans who received the one-dose shot from Johnson & Johnson may also need boosters, but will not yet be eligible.

Federal health officials said they are awaiting data from J&J in the next few weeks before urging additional doses. The J&J shot wasn’t approved until March, so those who received it will not hit eight months past inoculation until November.

The new booster rollout plan is subject to formal authorization from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine panel.

Those agencies will hold public meetings before the booster rollout can begin. Meanwhile, vaccine manufacturers are expected this fall to seek approval for administering shots to children under 12, who so far have not been eligible.

By Bruce DePuyt/Maryland Matters and Laura Olson/States Newsroom