HoCo Won't Reopen Friday Due To High Case Numbers, Low PPE Supply

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Because Howard County does not meet many of the criteria outlined by Gov. Larry Hogan in his four building blocks to reopen, the county will not be relaxing coronavirus restrictions any time soon. Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said that Hogan has "given individual counties and regions the discretion to review our own data and make decisions about when it is appropriate for us" to reopen. On Wednesday, Hogan announced the lifting of the stay-at-home order that will take effect at 5 p.m. Friday.

“Our testing capacity has increased; however, we have only tested about 2 percent of our Howard County population, or nearly 6,000 individuals to date,"Ball said in a statement. "Based on modeling to understand full exposure, we need to test up to 6,500 individuals a week. The governor has demonstrated a commitment to acquire more testing; however, these tests will likely go to larger jurisdictions first."

Also, because the county does not have a "robust" contact tracing operation — with only 11 out of 45 contact tracer positions filled — Ball said officials "need more time to achieve 15 contact tracers per 100,000 residents."

"Howard County has also not seen a decrease in cases or hospitalizations over the last 14 days, and borders six jurisdictions, a majority of which have significant case rates," he said. "Lastly, while we have ramped up our supply of PPE, it is still scarce and reopening sectors of our economy will increase demand, making it more difficult to secure a safe stockpile. We do not have the building blocks in place that the governor has outlined necessary for Stage One of reopening. We will continue to make decisions based on these data, and on the safety and welfare of our residents.”

Overall, Maryland has achieved the 14-day trend of plateauing and declining numbers, Hogan said Wednesday at a news conference. "The number of coronavirus hospitalizations is down from two weeks ago," with intensive care unit patients plateauing for "a significant period of time" and the rate of new deaths slowing from the virus.

"We will be lifting the stay-at-home order, and we will be moving instead to a safer-at-home public health advisory," said Hogan.

As of Wednesday morning, Howard County has\d a total of 1,258 positive new coronavirus cases, according to the Howard County Health Department, and 40 deaths.

Read more:

• Phase 1 Of Reopening To Begin For Some In MD After Coronavirus
• Confirmed Coronavirus Case Total In Howard County Reaches 1,258