Does someone have control of Governor Hogan? A big corporate winner in the corona games? A myopic medical advisor? His campaign manager? His words are right but his actions are wrong. It is perplexing.
For example, Maryland stonewalled the release of nursing home data until last week. Perhaps it is because nursing home deaths comprise 55% of the total deaths in Maryland. While this raises many questions on the management of aggregate care facilities, it also raises a serious question about data. Hogan has stated he will only reopen after 14 days of flattened or declining hospitalization and death trends. Which trends? Trend curves that include nursing home data? That doesn’t make sense. Will nursing home patients be on the front line of our economic restart? No. Therefore only trends that include the demographics of those who will kick start demand and the workforce should be included. Nursing home trends should only dictate safety guidelines for nursing homes.
To that end, Maryland should immediately release case, hospitalization and death trends for people 65 and under, net of nursing home data, with and without underlying conditions. The citizens have the right to follow the trends that impact their lives. Aside from evaluating Hogan’s performance, this data will mitigate fear by outlining the actual corona risk to the new frontline assuming proper physical distance and hygiene. Certainly this is not a novel thought. It is, however, an important one and it is disturbing that it hasn’t been considered publicly.
Along these same lines, data from highly specialized environments, such as poultry plants should result in unique safety requirements applicable to those businesses. Under no circumstances should data from these locations influence the reopening of the rest of the state.
Governor Hogan stated “there is nothing more important to me than getting our economy and our people back on their feet”. If this were true, why hasn’t he examined the appropriate trends regionally? Some areas probably already have 14 days of flattening if indeed there ever was a curve. Could portions of the eastern shore and the west go to phase 2 now with strict guidelines in place?
A leader whose top priority is keeping citizens safe from both the virus and an economic meltdown would dispense with the benevolent dictator schtick. His actions are anything but benevolent to small business. Hogan clearly feels empowered to willfully kill one business over another. For example, why has Hogan allowed people to buy flooring at Home Depot but not at a small independently owned business? Why does Hogan insist that you can only buy spice at a corporate grocery store but not at a small business dedicated to spice? We don’t need 14 days of anything to open these stores up, they should open now.
At this point in the outbreak, a leader dedicated to reopening would also be brutally honest about the consequences of the stay at home orders. Hogan barely mentions them. Based on what is known now about the virus, if the public balanced current corona risks against the risks of the shutdown, they would demand an immediate, safe opening of all business that can maintain physical distance and/or implement hygiene standards known to stop the spread. For those who only watch nonstop corona news or avoid all news, let’s hit a few highlights. Note each item below results in its own cascade of serious additional consequences. Maryland faces an estimated 2.8 billion shortfall. Over 30 million unemployed. Loss of life due to delayed health care and suicide. Sharp decline in economic activity and consumer confidence. 401ks in the tank. A frightening surge in credit card, rent and mortgage defaults. Hotels at 20% capacity if open. Travel and airline industries crushed. Manufacturing plants shuttered or crippled. Hospitals hemorrhage cash and lay off tens of thousands jeopardizing our health care industry. Empty storefronts and failed businesses. Restaurants gone. Livestock slaughtered. Troubling international incidents. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of GDP, plummeted at a 7.6% rate in the first quarter, the most since 1980. Economy shrank at 4.8% rate in the first quarter. The reduction in second quarter GDP will likely be staggering. US government set to borrow a record $2.99 trillion in the second quarter. The American dream crushed for many. The list goes on and on and this is just the beginning. For those who still claim the demand to reopen is for our convenience you are wrong, it is for our lives, figurative and literal.
In closing I ask Maryland citizens, does it make sense that a reopen strategy is strongly influenced by what is happening in nursing homes? Should our reopening be delayed due to outbreaks in highly specialized environments that demand unique safety guidelines? Should we ignore that the majority of states have begun the process to reopen? They can’t all be wrong. Should Hogan have the right to decide which businesses live and which die when either can be safe? Why should we accept arbitrary edicts that have zero impact on the spread of corona? Does it make sense to delay reopening when commonsense approaches that protect the vulnerable are possible? Does it make sense to delay when the consequences of doing so present a clear and present danger? No. With the curve flattened and hospital capacity sufficient, none of this makes sense which brings me back to the beginning. Who is in control?
Details
- Baltimore Sun 4.28.20 – “For weeks, Maryland had resisted requests for detailed breakdowns of coronavirus case counts and death tolls at nursing homes, and had even directed local health departments to stop providing information on specific outbreaks that had been released in spurts. The state told The Baltimore Sun that disclosing a list of nursing homes dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks would serve “no public health purpose.”
- Maryland’s reopen plan. https://www.baltimoresun.com/coronavirus/bs-md-takeaways-hogan-reopen-plan-20200425-6zfdovyy6vhwlc2xw5wcid45gq-story.html
- The estimated revenue losses released Friday assume that a stay-at-home order remains in place at least through June 30. https://www.marylandmatters.org/2020/04/11/citing-2-8-billion-estimated-revenue-loss-hogan-freezes-state-budgets-hiring/
- New York Times, interactive map. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html
- The photo of the slaughtered pigs was posted on facebook. I removed the poster’s information for privacy purposes. The airport photo is DCA.
Sue you raise salient points. I agree with you. Obviously poultry processing and nursing homes should be considered separately, although I wish they had better COVID-19 numbers.
My only hope for Maryland opening up is that Virginia’s Governor said today he is opening the state May 15 and he said it will be a regional approach made with Bowser and Hogan.
Thanks Lori. Yes it is horrible how covid has ravished the nursing homes. So sad. If nothing else, no doubt they have learned how to keep it from happening again.