White Marsh GM Plant Could Make Ventilators: County Executive

WHITE MARSH, MD — The shuttered White Marsh GM plant could be used for making ventilators to help people in Maryland and along the Eastern Seaboard combat the new coronavirus, according to Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewsi. He asked President Donald Trump to use his executive power to reopen the plant on Philadelphia Road, which the company closed in 2019.

There are 1,173 cases of the new coronavirus in Baltimore County, where 26 residents have died from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, as of Saturday, April 11.

As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rises in the region, Olszewski said more medical supplies will be needed, and the White Marsh plant — located near Interstate 95, rail lines, BWI and the port of Baltimore — would make logistical sense to help provide them.

"Governor Larry Hogan announced this week that 12 Maryland jurisdictions are COVID-19 hot spots," Olszewski said. "Manufacturing ventilators in White Marsh will ensure that hospitals in our hot spots get equipment quickly."

Through the Defense Production Act, Trump called on the General Motors to manufacture personal protective equipment and ventilators to add to the national stockpile.

"General Motors must immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!" he tweeted.

Using the president's words, Olszewski wrote to the Trump administration in a letter: "In Baltimore County, Maryland, we have our own 'stupidly abandoned' plant. Until April 2019, the General Motors plant in White Marsh was the only hybrid transmission manufacturing operation in the nation."

The plant closed in spring 2019, with nearly 300 workers laid off. The facility at 10301 Philadelphia Road was one of five facilities that GM closed in North America as it restructured its business.

"Our workers are idle, they are skilled, and they could make a meaningful contribution to the effort to increase the supply of ventilators needed to respond to COVID-19," Olszewski wrote in his letter dated Friday, April 10.

Amid the new coronavirus pandemic, Baltimore County has seen more workers laid off than any other jurisdiction in the state. More than 16,000 filed for unemployment in Baltimore County for the week of April 4 alone, according to the Maryland Department of Labor.

This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the first contract for ventilator production with GM, which was for $489.4 million.

GM must produce 30,000 ventilators by August, with more than 6,100 ready by June 1, federal officials reported Wednesday.

"This money should be leveraged to put hardworking Americans back to work, including residents of Baltimore County," Olszewski said. "These workers are idle, they are skilled, and they could make a meaningful contribution to the national effort to increase the supply of medical equipment needed by state and local governments to respond to COVID-19."

In late March, the Maryland Department of Health reported 1,040 ventilators were available in Maryland. The machines are used to pump air into the lungs of patients critically ill with COVID-19.

About 3 to 4 percent of people with the coronavirus will require ventilation to breathe for them as their bodies recover from the disease, according to TIME.

In New York, the epicenter of the disease in the United States, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been raising concerns for weeks about a global shortage of the machines, saying the state was going "broke" trying to buy them.

See Also:

• GM To Close White Marsh Plant
• White Marsh GM Workers To Receive Layoff Notices: Report
• 16,791 File For Unemployment In Baltimore County Amid Coronavirus
• MD Coronavirus Peak Estimate Released By Health Expert