Gov. Larry Hogan's Dec. 1 COVID-19 Press Conference

Governor Larry Hogan held a press conference on December 1, 2020, in the State House concerning Maryland’s COVID-19 response.

Governor Larry Hogan continues to be concerned by the COVID-19 outbreak in Maryland.
The Governor is taking additional steps to increase Maryland’s hospital surge capacity.

The Governor again urged Congress to pass a stimulus package. He said states cannot wait until January 20 for federal assistance.
Maryland has surpassed 201,135 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There have been 27 straight days of more than 1,000 new cases in Maryland. The statewide positivity rate is 7.33%. Maryland has 34.4 cases per 100,000 residents. There are currently 268,000 American who have died, including 4,516 Marylanders.
The Governor is concerned that hospitalization in Maryland have increased by 51% in the past two weeks. There are now 130 surge beds in use at locations such as the Baltimore Convention Center. There are 350 Marylanders with COVID-19 in ICUs and 21 hospitals in Maryland have reached more than 90% capacity.
The Governor discussed actions taken previously to increase surge capacity in the health care system. This includes: adding a 6,000 bed surge capacity, fast-tracking the licensing process for out-of-state medical personnel, activating Maryland Responds Reserves Medical Corps, adding alternative care site capacity, providing staffing support for nursing homes, limiting hospital visits and enabling overburdened hospitals to transfer patients.
The Governor announced he is taking a series of additional actions to address the surge of COVID-19 patients.

Those actions are:

–Urging those with clinical backgrounds who are interested in serving to go to marylandmednow.com for more information

–Requesting all academic institutions to award academic credit to health care students who choose to work in clinical roles

–Urging colleges and universities to expedite graduations of medical students

–Urging counties to tap school nurses, health services staff and other employees to help staff testing and vaccination sites

–Urging hospitals and nursing homes to allow other staff to do certain tasks that free up nursing staff

The Governor also announced that Maryland hospitals are required to submit a surge plan by December 8.
The Governor urged hospitals to add or redeploy staff, reduce elective procedures and transfer patients to appropriate treatment facilities.
The Governor said that once hospitals reach 8,000 COVID-19 patients, this will trigger a requirement to add 10% more space to increase surge capacity.

Also see: