Hogan To Outline MD Coronavirus Reopening, Touts Hospital Opening

LAUREL, MD — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan joined Prince George's County officials Wednesday to celebrate the reopening of Laurel Hospital Center as part of the state's response to the new coronavirus pandemic.

The reopening increases the number of beds available to treat Maryland patients recovering from COVID-19, the disease associated with the coronavirus. More beds is one of the criteria needed to reopen the state; Hogan said he'll share his timeline for easing restrictions on Friday.

"Thirty-seven days ago, I launched an unprecedented public health surge plan by enacting a executive order directing the Maryland Department of Health to open closed hospital facilities and to take other measures necessary to immediately increase our capacity by an additional 6,000 beds in order to meet the projected demand by this escalating virus," Hogan said during a Wednesday afternoon news briefing in Laurel. "The very first suggestion I had in our first meeting discussing this topic with our team that first day was: Why don't we reopen the Laurel Hospital?"

The newly launched Laurel Medical Center adds 135 beds, including 35 intensive care beds to treat people infected with COVID-19. The facility will be staffed by 400 contractural medical workers, who will be managed by the University of Maryland Medical System.

"Over the years, this facility helped save many lives before it was downsized and downgraded," Hogan said. "But now, with its rebirth, it is once again going to help us save lives, not just here in Prince George's County but throughout the national capital region."

The governor praised officials from the Maryland Department of Health and UMMS for bringing the hospital online in just a month's time to be ready for the predicted surge in COVID-19 cases.

"This hospital presents for all of us a really wonderful opportunity to be able to handle the surge as it occurs," said Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. "We know that we are really still very much in the middle of this and that we'll have great need in the coming weeks to be able to care for Prince Georgians in Prince George's County."

As of Wednesday morning, the Maryland Department of Health reported that Prince George's County had 3,875 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 125 county residents had died due to the disease.

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Prince George's County has the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 of any county in the state, according to the latest Maryland Department of Health data. Second on the list is Montgomery County, with a total of 2,868 positive infections.

"In our health system of 13 hospitals across the state of Maryland, we've been able to leverage the resources that define our health system by bringing to bear human capital, human resources and technology to where the need is greatest," said Dr. Mohan Suntha, president and chief executive officer of UMMS. "So while that need today is here disproportionately in Prince George's County, what we know is that as we get on the back side of the peak of the surge here in Prince George's County, we'll be able to leverage this resource for the benefit of citizens across the state of Maryland."

According to Hogan, the Laurel Hospital Center is just a piece of the larger puzzle in the state's plan to combat the new coronavirus on the path toward recovery. On Friday, Hogan said he will introduce the Maryland Strong Roadmap To Recovery, his plan to gradually reopen the state.

"This recovery plan … has been developed over many weeks in consultation with our coronavirus response team of doctors and public health experts as four essential building blocks that are needed to be solidly in place before we can be in position to begin lifting restrictions," he said.

Hogan's buildings blocks include expanding Maryland's testing capacity, increasing the hospital surge capacity, increasing the supply of personal protective equipment, and establishing a robust contact tracing operation.

According to Hogan, Maryland has expanded its testing capability by more than 5,000 percent over the past month, conducting more than 76,000 tests to date.

In Prince George's County, the Maryland Department of Health and the Maryland National Guard established the state's first screening and testing facility at FedEx Field, and similar drive-thru facilities have been added across the state. Last week, the state also secured 40,000 additional tests.

"We invested $2.5 billion to help the University of Maryland to use cutting-edge robotics to build their capacity in order to handle 20,000 tests per day," Hogan said.

On Saturday, as part of Operation Enduring Friendship, the governor secured 500,000 COVID-19 test kits from a South Korean company.

"This 500,000 test capacity is equal to the total amount of testing that has been completed by four of the top five states in America added together," Hogan said, adding that another plane arrived at BWI airport Wednesday morning with a new payload of test kits.

The governor confirmed that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence agreed to allow Maryland to access the many federal labs located in the state to help with the coronavirus testing.

"Access to these federal labs can be key to utilizing the 500,000 tests that we acquired from South Korea, and we are looking forward to moving forward on this very important potential federal state collaboration," Hogan said.

In addition to the Laurel Medical Center, Maryland has opened the 250-bed field hospital at the Baltimore Convention Center. That facility is completely staffed and set up to admit patients who no longer require hospitalization but still need to complete their recovery.

Elsewhere in Prince George's County, beds have been added to the Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center, including intensive care beds. Similar expansions are in place at UM Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly.

"We're expanding capacity with 22 surge response tents across the state, including at Doctors Hospital Community Hospital in Lanham, at Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton, at Holy Cross Hospital and Washington Adventist Hospital in White Oak," Hogan said. One hundred beds will also be added to state's corrections and detention centers in Jessup and Hagerstown to meet their needs.

Hogan acknowledged that Maryland was facing many of the same obstacles as other jurisdictions in obtaining PPEs. However, he confirmed Maryland had recently acquired 5.9 million surgical masks, 1 million K95 masks, 2.3 million surgical gowns, 1.1 million face shields and 1,000 ICU beds.

Maryland currently has 250 contact tracers working with state and local heath departments. Hogan confirmed Wednesday that the state had signed a contract with NORC, the national opinion research center at the University of Chicago, which has offices in Bethesda.

"Under this agreement, we will quadruple our present disease investigation capability, ramping up to be able to contact trace 1,000 new cases per day," he said.

On Wednesday, Maryland also launched a state-of-the-art contact tracing platform called COVID-Link, which will help to monitor and collect information about people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and those with whom they may have come in close contact. The website will help Maryland residents determine if they need to self-isolate or take other steps to ensure the virus does not spread any further.

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