Gatherings Worsening Coronavirus Spread In Howard County: Ball

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Howard County Executive Calvin Ball joined leaders of Maryland's largest jurisdictions Wednesday to address the coronavirus pandemic. As of Dec. 9, more Marylanders currently are hospitalized due to the coronavirus than at any other time during the pandemic, Gov. Larry Hogan noted.

"Sadly, as we anticipated, COVID-19 hospitalizations in Maryland are now at an all-time high," Hogan said in a statement.

Currently, 1,715 people with the virus are being cared for in Maryland hospitals, state health officials reported Wednesday, an jump of 62 patients in the last 24 hours.

Leaders from Baltimore City as well as Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Frederick, Harford, Montgomery and Prince George's counties met at 2 p.m. Wednesday for a virtual news conference to discuss the COVID-19 surge and to call for unified action to protect public health.

“Although 15 jurisdictions have higher case rates than Howard County ... our positivity rate has increased from 1.9 percent in October to 6.2 percent today. Howard County does have the fifth lowest rate in Maryland, but we will continue to remain vigilant," Ball said.

Ball noted that testing in the county has increased "exponentially" since the spring. The virus appears to be spreading within households and through gatherings of family and friends.

"In the spring we were concerned about how it spread, now we have tracers pointing to gatherings. This is one of the great challenges we have, but we have to stay the course," he said. "In this week alone, we have conducted more than 15,000 tests, dramatically higher than our original goal of 6,500 tests. With a vaccine on the horizon, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But there’s not an immediate solution."

Dr. Gail Cunningham with the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson said that hospitals are stretched thin.

"Across almost every hospital in our system, they are almost to capacity," Cunningham said. "It's not sustainable."

If nothing is done, 10,000 hospital beds may be required to handle the surge, with only 8,000 available in the state, according to Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman.

"Our state is in a dangerous place in this pandemic," Dr. Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said during the virtual news conference.

"It's critical to slow the spread of this virus down," Inglesby said. "It will take months for substantial numbers of people to get vaccinated and months for the vaccine to have an impact on the rate of the spread" of the virus in the state. He encouraged people to avoid large gatherings and elected officials to close venues that could attract groups.

Maryland also is experiencing a shortage of hospital workers, but Hogan intends to fill 2,000 to 3,000 health care positions. So far, 4,268 prospects have signed up to work at Maryland hospitals, nursing homes, testing sites and vaccination clinics. He encouraged people who are interested to visit marylandmednow.com.

"We have received an enthusiastic response to our call for medical staffing search," Hogan said.

Patch editors Alessia Grunberger, Elizabeth Janney and Jacob Baumgart contributed to this article.

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'Our State Is In A Dangerous Place': MD Coronavirus Expert