12 MD Counties In Red Zone: White House Coronavirus Task Force

MARYLAND — After months of being hidden from public view, weekly reports sent to Maryland by the White House coronavirus response team have a new, publicly accessible home.

Cyrus Shahpar, COVID-19 data director for the Biden administration, announced the move in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

“First post: We are now sharing previously hidden weekly COVID-19 state profile reports with the public,” Shahpar tweeted.

First post: We are now sharing previously hidden weekly COVID-19 state profile reports with the public. Thanks to data team and @l_e_whyte @rypan @alexismadrigal @DrTomFrieden @EricTopol @JasonSalemi @PeterJ_Walker @T_Inglesby https://t.co/f4trSyNpBv
— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) January 27, 2021

The release of the weekly state reports marks a stark contrast between the response of the current administration and its predecessor.

For the most part, the Trump administration had kept the weekly reports under wraps, sharing them with state governors but not with the public. While some governors would share the reports at a state level, not all did.

The reports often contained key county-level data as well as federal recommendations by health experts that, if enacted, could potentially curb the spread of coronavirus.

The reason for keeping them hidden, according to a report by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, was to encourage states to lead their own response to the pandemic.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a leader of the White House task force under former President Donald Trump, said on a private call last summer that the reports were “critical to really ensure we’re all looking at the same data and all looking at the same mitigation efforts,” according to a separate report by the Center for Public Integrity.

However, just before Christmas, the coronavirus task force under Trump stopped its proactive approach to sending out the reports. Instead, the task force said it would only distribute reports if states requested them.

Here’s what we learned in the first Maryland report:

• Maryland is second in the nation for new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100 inpatient beds, behind Arizona.

• In Maryland, 12 counties remain in the "red zone," which is based on new cases and positivity rates: Washington, Charles, Wicomico, St. Mary's, Calvert, Worcester, Queen Anne's, Allegany, Dorchester, Caroline, Talbot and Garrett counties.
  • Maryland is 35th in the nation for new cases per 100,000 people. States with the highest case rates per 100,000 people are Arizona, South Carolina, California, Rhode Island, New York, Georgia, Texas, Delaware, Virginia and Oklahoma.
  • Maryland is 29th in the nation for test positivity. Top states are Oklahoma, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, Nebraska, Alabama and South Carolina.

The release of the weekly state reports is the latest move by the Biden administration to bring transparency back to the White House.

Within hours of Joe Biden’s inauguration, press secretary Jen Psaki held her first press briefing at the White House. During it, Psaki — who served as the chief spokeswoman at the State Department under President Barack Obama — told reporters she had a “deep respect for the role of a free and independent press in our democracy.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, also said Americans should expect a “transparent, open and honest” response to the coronavirus under Biden.

— By Megan VerHelst and Elizabeth Janney