Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan eased coronavirus restrictions Wednesday to allow residents to resume elective medical procedures and participate in approved outdoor activities but also closed public schools for the rest of the academic year.
Effective 7 a.m. Thursday, residents may participate in golfing, fishing, boating, tennis, camping and other similar outdoor activities, Mr. Hogan said at a press conference. He added that local governments can exercise flexibility in reopening playgrounds and parks.
Meanwhile, the Maryland Department of Health, effective immediately, will issue guidelines for how to approach and begin offering elective procedures at the discretion of hospitals and health care providers, the governor said.
“Now, I realize these are only small steps and that they may be of little comfort to those who are out of work and who are struggling financially,” Mr. Hogan said. “But it is thanks to all of you and your incredible sacrifices that we are making great progress, … we are preparing to launch our reopening plan in order to get people safely back to work, safely get our small business back open again, get our economy back on track so Maryland and our nation can defeat this virus and come back stronger and better than ever.”
In March, Mr. Hogan ordered schools to close, residents to stay at home and only essential businesses to operate as part of efforts to stop the spread of the sometimes deadly coronavirus. His move to ease some of those restrictions comes as other governors have taken steps to reopen their states amid the pandemic.
Mr. Hogan said Wednesday that Maryland is making progress in “flattening the curve,” meaning that new COVID-19 cases are not rising at a rate that would overwhelm hospitals and medical centers. He also touted success in shoring up hospitals’ capacity to treat patients, providing coronavirus tests throughout the state and developing a system to trace the people that a COVID-19 patient may have come in contact with before testing positive.
If the rate of new cases continues to decrease, Maryland is poised to enter phase one of the reopening plan next week, the Republican governor said.
He added that all of the measures to ease restrictions are predicated on Marylanders continuing to take personal responsibility for wearing facial coverings in public and maintaining social distance.
Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Karen Salmon said different methods of returning to school will be included in phase two and three of the governor’s plan, such as smaller group learning and students going to school for in-person learning on alternate days or weeks.
It is up to the school districts as to how they will honor their graduating seniors, Ms. Salmon said.
Mr. Hogan also noted that the first test vaccination for the coronavirus in the U.S. was administered Tuesday at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
The biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. also donated to the state 1,600 doses of the Remdesivir, a drug that has been studied to treat COVID-19. Mr. Hogan said he would deploy those doses to Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, which have the highest concentrations of coronavirus cases.
In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam said Wednesday that if the state continues to meet metrics for reopening, he will be poised to initiate reopening plans in the commonwealth on May 15.
“I want everybody to understand when we do detail what phase one restrictions look like, we regard that as the floor, if local governments feel that they need to maintain additional restrictions on gatherings or business operations, we will allow that and work with localities,” Mr. Northam said at a press conference.
Army Maj. Gen. Timothy Williams, commander of the Virginia National Guard, said about 600 Guardsmen have been deployed to support the state’s response to the coronavirus, specifically with testing for the virus and distributing food.
Gen. Williams said they have collected more than 2,700 test samples and done 22,000 hours of planning augmentation.
“While this is not the largest call up of our personnel, it is certainly the longest,” Gen. Williams said.
In the District, health officials are seeing increased cases of coronavirus due to household transmission, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has not announced tentative dates for reopening.
The D.C. Department of Health on Wednesday released data for the first time illustrating which neighborhoods have the highest concentrations of confirmed coronavirus cases.
Columbia Heights, 16th St. Heights and Chinatown, all of which have dense populations, were the top three neighborhoods with the most cases.
At a press conference Wednesday, Miss Bowser and leaders of the District’s hospitality and tourism industry announced a marketing campaign for recovery after the city having lost $78 million in taxes due to the public health emergency.
“So now the question is how do we get back on track once we are able to do so,” said Elliott Ferguson, president and CEO of Destination D.C, a nonprofit that supports tourism. “It’s going to take an aggressive marketing and promotion campaign to attract visitors back to Washington as a destination.”
After seeing a record 22.8 million domestic visitors in 2019, the District has witnessed a loss of $1.7 billion in travel spending — a 71% decline — due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The marketing campaign will focus on all of the free museums and memorials people can visit as a way to distinguish the District from other destinations and appeal to those who were impacted financially by the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the cancellation of 22 conventions in the District will have an economic impact of $163 million.
Mr. Ferguson said he was not worried about virtual conferences hurting the large-scale event industry, and announced a huge booking for the District — Lions Club International Convention in 2027.
Although seven years away, this booking, with almost $15 million in economic impact, is a good sign for the rebound of the industry, Mr. Ferguson said.
