Thank you for joining us today. Were here with governor larry hogan of maryland to talk about the challenges weve faced as a country, grappling with the covid pandemic and some things that maryland has done to deal with their epidemic of covid spread. This is a time with the Intelligence Committee long warning us of the risk and put it on par with weapons of mass destruction and counterterrorism and cyber attack. As much as we thought we were prepared as a nation, we found going through this episode at that we really didnt have all the preparations that we thought we had. And weve been unable to find as a nation a medium between allowing this virus to spread in a way thats causing a lot of death and suffering, and strict lockdown, something thats acceptable to enough people that we can implement some kind of an approach that enough people find socially and culturally and economically acceptable. So were continuing to see spread around the nation particularly in the south right now. Maryland is among the states that have grappled with epidemic spread and managed to crush the epidemic and bring virus levels down. So i wanted to talk to the governor today about the things that he did to try to control the epidemic in the state, restart a lot of the activity in the state, try to bring back to marylanders what was important to them with respect to trying to open schools and restart the economy, and do the things that are important to people and preserve those things that are important to people, even admits continued risk from this epidemic and the risk that comes back in the fall. Governor, thank you for joining us. I want to start with a question, just generally. What do you think is going to evolve. What are you looking at risk with respect to the fall. Thank you for hosting and thank aei, its an honor to be with you, thank you for your service as your advice throughout this entire thing and serving on our Coronavirus Task force. Its been invaluable and youre obviously one of the most important voices and leaders in this entire pandemic so thank you for everything youve done, its been a pleasure working with you, i look forward to the discussion today. I think as we move forward, were concerned as everybody else is looking at whats happening around the rest of the country. Weve really we were very early and aggressive in trying to go after this. Thanks to the advice from smart people i can lieu and aeis plan that they put out early on, we took a lot of that advice from people like some of our friends from Johns Hopkins and university of maryland and smart doctors and epidemiologists and Public Health officials and we took early and aggressive action that i think did help dampen the curve and luckily, so far our numbers are looking pretty good. Our Positivity Rate has been flat and on a slightly declining level for three weeks now. Were better than whats going on in a lot of places, but were very concerned about seeing the spikes in places all around the country. Were not immune to that, this virus doesnt recognize borders. Were concerned about how this might spread into the fall, especially as we think about not only how do we restart our economy and get kids back to learning again and back to schools if we can do it in a safe way and how this is going to effect us when we run into the confluence with the flu season. So, its, as you know, nowhere near behind us and were going to be struggling with this for a long time. Can you talk a little about what maryland did to try it get the levels down . What the state did and what you did in this state and what other states might have done that would be sort of Lessons Learned . Im not sure we did things that different. We may have taken action quicker than other states and then a little more aggressive. The very first day that we got our very first case, first of all, i think we started watching this in early in january when we first started hearing about what was going on in china. We had a great, i believe the National Governors association in february, we had a really great presentation from some of the federal governments top experts who kind of gave us an awareness of what might be happening, advised the governors and then we were watching it and on top of it, our whole team, our Emergency Management professionals, our whole cabinet and our Health Department was ready and trying to be prepared in advance. And when our first case broke out in march, i immediately, within hours, declared a state of emergency and it set off a succession of i think maybe 40 executive orders rolling back and tightening down things to try to every time we got advice about what could help us save lives and keep people safe we took those actions quickly. I think i was the first or maybe governor dewine in ohio and i simultaneously closed down our schools, the first to do so, we took action the first shutdown casinos and large events and then restaurants and bars, and then you know, stayathome order, and masking and those kind of things. And then we had a safe which you helped us come up with really good advice on. A safe gradual and effective reopening plan that still kept many of those things in place. And now weve had our economy open. 98 of our economy is allowed to open, but in a safe and manageable way. We kept all of our essential businesses open throughout this pandemic and while obviously its impacted us economically, were doing much better economically than other states. Your unemployment is 8 . Many states are at 23, 25 . You talked about the meeting that you pulled together for the National Governor association when you brought in experts in february, that was early, early on. In february before a lot of people were focused on this. What inspired you to do that . What was the mood in that meeting, in the meeting and coming out of it. Was that a key moment . It was interesting, so, we have a couple of days where all the governors descend on washington. Right. And its the annual winter meeting of National Governors association. We had almost all the governors here, maybe 48 of the governors or so. And we had a full agenda. This was not on the agenda. We squeezed it in. Lets get this emergency meeting in and we had dr. Redfield. We had Anthony Fauci and we have a couple of key leaders come in. And it was before we had to switch to tuxes and the annual white house dinner. We cant do another meeting, were got to take a shower, change clothes and get our spouses and go to the dinner, but we stressed how important this was going to be. I can tell you when we heard from these experts at the federal level what we were going to be faced with as they talked about, this is potentially more con taye contagious than sars, this is going to be spreading like wildfire. At that time we had just had the cases in state of washington and just heard the news about the outbreak in the first nursing home all over the television, but it wasnt yet spread across the country and every governor, most of the governors i think left that day, left that meeting, somewhat shocked, but very aware and very concerned about, weve got to take immediate action. I know i came back to my office the day after that, wed already been working on it for a month or so and said, now, we are going into high gear. Yeah. Youve talked about the challenges you wrote in the Washington Post recently about some of the challenges and in your book as well. Getting Testing Services into states and into the country. This state has done a lot better than other states. Testing about 25,000 people a day, continuing to ramp, youre out of the university of maryland to do additional testing. What do you think we could be doing at a National Level . What do you not see happening that could help better in the state. In the fall when this collides with flu season anyone who has flulike symptoms is now to go to have to get ruled out for covid. Well take more testing. The oped in washington, it wasnt a current story, it was an excerpt from a book about the early stages. Pandemic we could have taken more steps to develop a National Testing strategy. I think weve done a better job of getting testing ramped up not only in our state, but across the country, but now were running into problems again where states are having shortages because theyre lines and labs are taking 10 days or long tower get tests back, thats almost worthless. You cant really make decision based on somebody who got found positive 10 days late. So we here developed a longterm testing strategy in april and acquired a massive kind of labs and facilities all over our state and we have a plan to last us through the fall strategically because were concerned. Our lab, we built our own lab at university of maryland with state of the art robotics utilizing the korean tests that we acquired, theyre much faster and turn around outbreaks and clusters, 24 hours, maybe 48 hours at the latest were seeing private back up for 10 days or two weeks. Im concerned that well have to keep working so we dont have the issues in the fall when the flu season comes out. You say chapter 38 titled Global Pandemic and marylands 24 counties that the pandemic is going to be the most important challenge of our lives and specifically remark as a Diverse Group we are, republican, democrats, urban, rural, suburban, every local leaders can feel the weight at the moment, were all in this together even in no one knew what this was. So much to be done. Weve seen a lot of shifts in the public mood over this country, over the last decade or so. Weve seen shifts recently as a result of the pandemic that were grappling with. What do you think the majority of voters are looking at. How are they reshaping the public mood, if you will . A great question. Look, 2020 has been the most difficult year that any of us have possibly gone through, everybody in america. And its really challenged leaders at the federal, state, and local level, but its really challenged everyday americans, Small Businesses owners people who have lost their jobs and who have gone through the tragedy of losing a loved one or going through this, fighting this illness. Its impacted will many every aspect of society and its going to continue to do so for quite some time. I believe its going to continue through the fall and early next year until we can get a vaccine. None of us really expected to go through this. Its the biggest challenge i know ive ever had to deal with and ive been through challenges before. But i think, you know, how we deal with this crisis is going to be a defining moment for america, and it really is going to take everybody at the federal, state and local level and the private sector, all working together to try to come out of this and bring our economy back and get the Health Crisis under control. I want to just touch on the book again, if i may. A very clear theme in the book is the importance of transparency, so on page 293, you know, quote, weve got overwhelming public support after shutting down the indoor dining, gyms, movie theaters, quote, because we were so clear in explaining the reasons for this drastic action, unquote. And you appreciated the importance of unfiltered truth to the people of maryland. You know, you received from governor officials in your initial briefing on page 281, let me get on 370 you talk about levelling with the maryland people explaining, quote the way we go about our daily lives and the way we work is going to be significantly different. To pretend otherwise wouldnt be honest. What would you say if youre giving advice to other leaders about this sort of candor in a moment of crisis, levelling with people not just about what you know and trying to call on collective action, but also what we dont know, which was a lot of things with respect to covid. Well, i think its probably one of the most important things in a time like this, when people that are theres so much uncertainty and the american people, people are scared. Theyre worried about what the future is and they have so many questions and theyre looking to leaders and theyre looking to smart people like you who know much more about these diseases than they do, to give them clear, unfiltered advice and guidance and they want the facts as directly as possible. Even if youre delivering, you know, bad into us or things they dont want to hear, i think its just important to be as frank and direct as open as possible and ive said, and not just to be critical, but ive said to the president and to the ive said and one of the things, one of the mistakes theyve made is just not communicating clearly. We would have a great discussion with some of the top leaders in the administration, leading the Coronavirus Task force and the president would Say Something almost opposite to what theyre saying and that communicating is essential particularly in a crisis. Ive tried to be very straight forward and direct all the time, but in a crisis its even more important. January 19th of this year was the day that they announced in wuhan that the cases had gone from 50 to 200 and it was a turning point of sorts. I remember the day, i remember where i was. The phone calls i made after that. The first time that the chinese said they believe theres a sustained human to human transmission so the first time that we had evidence that there was transmission between people and that monday, i believe it was, they actually announced that about a dozen or so doctors had been infected which is a indication theres human to human transmission. Were almost exactly six months from that point, its remarkable its that short of a period of time. It sure feels longer. It feels longer, reinforcing what we dont know. Given the uncertainty, Everyone Wants to send kids back to school and your focus on that and we recognize importance of getting kid back in the classroom. How are you grappling with getting kids back in school, but doing it safely given theres unknowns especially with children . First of all, i agree it doesnt seem like six months, it seems like three years has gone by, amazing how much has happened by then. We dont know the answers and the end is not in sight. We dont know whats going to happen next. Given the weight of all the decisions that weve had to make. This is one of the most difficult, i think, how do we get our kid back to school safely. We all want to get our kids learning go en. We cant go forever without kids, the socialization of being back in the classrooms. Its difficult to just do Distance Learning, but weve got to keep them safe so its theres no one size fits all and well have to watch the numbers carefully. In our state, our state superintendent of schools, we had a great discussion with Robert Redfield at the c. D. C. They put out some very good guidelines. We had a good discussion with the president , Coronavirus Task force. And getting input from all of our local school jurisdictions, some in different situations with others. Some are good at Distance Learning and are much more populous and some are more rural and dont have the same issues, who are going to be flexibility what Certain School systems. I want to get some kids back in the classrooms if they can do it safely. We dont want the kids to be spreading this. And thats what well try to grapple with. We have asked our local School Systems for proposed plans. Well give them flexibility and give them guidelines. I dont think that people appreciate how diverse maryland is. I used to live in maryland. Its a diverse economy. The decision to try to give a lot of control and Decision Making down to local authorities in the state to try to tailor sort of the response based on local needs, local customs, local resources. Is that the case here . You know, its what the federal government is recommending. Theyre talking county by county instead of state by state. They requested authority and flexibility. And we have some very large jurisdictions some with close to a Million People in population, larger than some states. Some are very urban or populated suburban and some are rural, small counties. They have different needs. Theres not one size fits all. We set standards, you must do these things. If a local jurisdiction had higher positivity like we had in Prince Georges County outside of washington, they could go slower if they want today and weve now got them down to 6 . Its higher than the rest of the state, but way, way down from the peak days ago. And im working with governor lamont in my home state. We lost you by the way. Hell be back and we thought through how to reopen schools. I think talking to a lot of governors, states havent necessarily thought through how theyre going to be in a school. And what are the criteria thinking about that. Weve been thinking about that. I dont want to think about it, but again, you have to plan for the worse Case Scenario and id love to get your input and maybe talk about this online on get your thoughts now. When we reach certain points, if you have an outbreak or an infection in a school, if it reaches a certain level. If we get Positivity Rates in that area that are over a certain level youve got to have breaks to say, weve got to catch this before it spreads. So, if youre going to open schools, youre going to have 0 breaking mechanism to stop the spread and keep kids safe. Im sure youre going to come up with good suggestions for us. Yeah, i think its going to be a challenging situation headed into the fall because we are likely to see outbreaks in the schools. We dont fully understand this virus in the setting of kids. We also dont understand what its going to look like when it spreads when people start to get coinfected. Its important to get kids back in the classroom and i know you agree, even for a brief period of time, get them socialized with their classes if we have to get to a distance model, thats important for them to get together for a brief period of time. And also the economy, weve got parents that got to stay home with the kid and cant get back into the workplace, there are so many different factors. I want to we have some questions coming in from twitter so i want to i want to get to that pretty soon. Thank you, ive got my questions. Youve tweeted recently about your fiveyear anniversary from finishing chemotherapy and i remember that. Remember those anniversaries. You never forget that last visit. Its poignant because when youre five years out as you know, theres a presumption that youve sort of beaten the cancer and its not going to come back. Let me interrupt and say, i postponed my pet scan because it was in the middle of pandemic. So i was supposed to get it april 1st and i waited several months because of the overloaded hospitals. You were really past the point. Interesting, i didnt know that detail. Thank you for sharing that. You had cancer, obviously, later in life at a moment in your career having been a private businessman and then id only been governor for five months. Right, exactly. You know, how do you think do you think its shaped the way you think about Public Service in a different way . Does it put you on a different sort of path . I think im sure it impacted you, scott, after going through it, but it made me realize things that are important in life. I got a chance to meet so many other fellow Cancer Patients going through much tougher battles than my own and their families and what theyre going through. It did change me, im much more empathetic and ive got a new calling in life whether im governor or not. Helping to raise awareness for a cure for these terrible diseases. A question from twitter, if i may. Theyre not going to be as good as yours. Theyll probably be better than mine. Crowd sourcing is always better than what i can come up with. So people can be better prepared in the fall, at what point might maryland consider rolling back some of the reowning or shutting down certain aspects of business again . How have you thought about that . Our goal would be to keep business own open in the economy unless its necessary. Since weve been aggressive on masking and distancing and putting restrictions on capacity and place and since our state has been following the rules, luckily, weve been doing massive amounts of testing now, and doing two and a half times more than last month. So ur number of cases is ratcheting up, but our positivity is not. Our hospitalization is good. Our death rate is down. So we watch these on a daily basis and theyre trending in the right direction, unlike in other states. As soon as we start to see numbers that dont look good. Its going to cause us to take whatever actions are necessary. We saw some concerning and alarming numbers with young people under 35. And you know, we put some guidance out to try to crack down on what we think some of those activities are with the local Health Departments. If we feel we have to do something, im not going to hesitate do just like we did on the way down. My goal is to try to keep the economy safely open because the economic crisis is nearly as bad as or just as bad as the Health Crisis. Youre showing me the rising Positivity Rate among young people relative to the general population. Have you seen any impact from the action or too early . Still too early. We never fully opened bars the way a number of states did. Weve only creeded, distanced capacity restricted, but still, young people are gravitating to the bars. Not everyone is following the rules, theyre going to parties and for people over 35, were like at 3 and 3. 8 infection. Its almost twice that at 6 point something. Its much lower than it was, we peaked 90 days ago, but theres a concern that theres a little bit of a gap. If you looked at numbers people coming in from hot spots. New york, and from florida. Were seeing some of that and some of the surrounding states higher than us at border states and delaware beaches, we have them crossing over into the maryland beaches. And Southern States. It was happening from new york and new jersey back when they were hot and now seeing Southern States come up, but you cant close your borders, but were keeping an eye, we have travel advisories and people are coming in from were advising them not to travel from some of the states, if they do they should get tested and watch their symptoms and try to selfquarantine. Obviously, you can put in place some limitations from people travelling from other states and with new york, a mandatory quarantine if youre coming from hot spot states. Is that difficult for maryland . Its difficult for anybody to enforce, but its not as big an issue for us yet, but were keeping an eye on that and certainly putting out advisories and warnings and trying to message to people they ought to be cautious. Another question from twitter. What are you thinking about with respect how voting is going to unfold in the fall given the circumstances . During the height of the pandemic. We were supposed to have a primary right at the peak when we were massive infection rate and i signed an executive order postponing the primary moving it a couple of months later to june and we allowed for a vote by mail and they only opened up a few precincts. They screwed up the vote by pail, state board of elections did, and mailed Spanish Speaking ballots to English Speakers and the wrong districts. As disaster. And a people showed up at the precincts and waits. We are going to have mailin batt ballot. Early voting safely distanced and absentee ballots weve done for 20 years. And we encourage voting and we dont want to have crowded polling places and well watch it and have ppe and try to keep everybody safe, but you cant do one or the other. Were going to try to do all of the above. Ive been wanting to ask you this for a long time and its my sort of fda wonk hat. You talked a lot about the story of securing the tests from south korea with the help much your life. What kind of steps did you have to go through in terms of getting regulatory signoff and working with federal officials to be able to bring the test ins and to use them. How did you do it . Well, so, it was somewhat after nightmare. You know early on and i talk about this in the book. Early on there was not enough testing. Right. So, i think in early march, there were like 2800 tests done in the whole country by the end of the march, little in the states and thats when we started reaching out. The president at one point said you guys are on your own testing, im not going to stand on the Street Corner giving out tests. The states were scrambling around. We spent 22 days negotiating with eight of our state agencies with this company in south korea. We acquired these tests. Fda had been given flexibility to the states to be able to use things that were not through the normal process, which is how we did it, but we kept it pretty much under wraps because there were some issues, the federal government had kind of confiscated supplies coming in to other states, including massachusetts. We didnt want that to happen. We worked through the channels and low profile. The end of the story its a big centerpiece of our longterm testing strategy. Weve built a lab with robotics and used tens of thousands of tests on our hottest spots. Were using 3,000 and we have supplies in the the end of november unless the slow labs, if we have to double up our production, we may have to acquire more of these tests and use them up faster than anticipated. Whats flowing through the testing centers, just in the Public Health labs . When we go in, were doing nursery homes, outbreak in our poultry industry. We need to get the results, the ones sending to our labs, theyre going through the normal process and go through quest or lab corps or through the other facilities. Its one part of our longterm testing strategy. So part of the tests that goes through the lab is mostly the public when you need them in 48 hours and others are longer. Are are you surprised we are facing testing shortages. I am, with the other states, the National Labs they were use ago good job. We were utilizing them. And in the past several weeks we are going to have to leave this live event to bring you gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. Senate. 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