OCEAN CITY — With Maryland’s key COVID metrics continuing to surge in the wrong direction, Gov. Larry Hogan this week announced more efforts to stem the spread including mobilizing more capacity and staffing at hospitals, but on the Lower Shore, area hospitals appear to be coping thus far.
In his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Hogan said the state’s key COVID metrics continue to trend upward including the number of cases, the testing positivity rates, hospitalizations and, unfortunately, deaths. To that end, the governor announced a series of new initiatives aimed at preparing hospitals statewide to handle the growing number of cases each day.
The initiatives, under the larger umbrella of MarylandMedNow, include mobilizing hospital staffing from a variety of sources, increasing hospital acute bed capacity, urging colleges and universities to award academic credit to students for hands-on healthcare work in the field and others. Hogan said the recent surge, which has now included 24 straight days of at least 1,000 new cases statewide, is testing the state’s healthcare system, but the initiatives he announced on Tuesday will help stem the tide.
“The current surge is not only increasing the burden on our healthcare system and filling available hospital beds, but is also affecting our healthcare workers who are already spread thin and operating under immense strain and stress,” he said. “We are laser focused on taking actions in an effort to prevent the overburdening of our healthcare system.”
Or .01 percent of Maryland population but whatever sounds more scary. Rino