Critics are claiming the Hogan administration kept quiet about expensive shortcomings in COVID-19 tests the state imported from South Korea early in the pandemic.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is being accused of having kept quiet about expensive shortcomings in tests his administration imported from South Korea early on in the pandemic to help the state respond to the crisis.
Howard County Sen. Clarence Lam, who is the only doctor serving in the Maryland Senate, called the situation “shameful.”
“I think you’re getting close to a cover-up,” Lam said. “They intentionally misled the legislature and the public on the status of these tests.”
The half-million tests in question were purchased by Maryland from South Korea in May and delivered in special flights to BWI at a cost of $9.5 million to Maryland taxpayers during a time when there was a critical testing shortage in the U.S.
But according to a one report, those test were flawed and Hogan secretly paid another $2.5 million to have them replaced.
Hogan told MSNBC the original tests were “swapped out” after changes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In September, false positives from the Korean tests were at the root of a false alarm about a nursing home outbreak, according to a recent federal audit. The report determined there were problems in processing the tests at a University of Maryland lab, but that the tests themselves are reliable.
Most processing has been moved to a private lab that just secured a $43 million contract to process state COVID-19 tests from Maryland’s Board of Public Works.
Now this is being discussed? WTF Annapolis?