Grappling with the pandemic and some of the things maryland has done to deal with their academic. This is an unprecedented time. They have long warned us about the risks of the pandemic and put it on par with destruction, counterterrorism but as much as we thought we were not figured for this as a nation, we found going through this episode that we really didnt have all of the preparations that they thought they had and we have been unable to find as a nation a medium between allowing the virus to spread in a way that is causing of death and suffering and something accessible to the defendant committed somenoughthf an approach that enough people find socially and culturally and economically acceptable. So, we continue to see around the nation particularly in the south right now. Maryland is a state that has grappled with widespread and managed to crush the epidemic and bring the levels down so i wanted to talk about the things he did to try to control the epidemic in the state and restore to bring back what was important with respect to trying to open schools and restart the economy and to do the things important to people and preserve those things even in the continued risk from the epidemic and the risk that comes back at some point this fall. Thank you for joining us. I want to start with a question. What are you looking at with respect to the polls and what do you think the risks are . I want to thank aei. Thank you for your service and giving advice serving on the task force. Its been valuable and i think you are obviously one of the most important voices and leaders so thank you for everything youve done. Its been a pleasure working with you and i look forward to discussion. I think as we move forward, we are concerned as everybody else, looking at what is weppening around the country. We were early and aggressive to go after this think thanks to te advice from people like you and the plan that they put out early on we took a lot of advice from people like Johns Hopkins and university of maryland is an smarand somesmart doctors and epidemiologists and Public Health officials. We took early and aggressive action that could help dampen the curve and so far the numbers are looking pretty good. The rate has been relatively flat declining the level for three weeks now. Better than whats going on in a lot of places but we are concerned about seeing the spikes in places all around the country. We are not immune to that and this doesnt recognize borders. We are concerned about how this might spread into the fold especially as we think about not only how to restart the economy and get kids back to learning again and back into schools in a safeway and how this is going to affect us when we run into the confluence of the things he believein the flu season. We are going to be struggling with this for a long time. When the first case broke out in march immediately within hours declared a state of emergency, and it set off a succession of maybe 40 executive orders rolling back to tighten down the god advice would help us to save lives we tickles actions quickly may be the governor in ohio and i simultaneously close schools, we were the first to do so and took action to shut down casinos and large events than restaurants and bars and the stayathome order. All those kinds ofnd t things ad then a safe and gradual and effective reopening plan and now weve had the economy open they have now been allowed to open in a safe and manageable way. And throughout the pandemic we are doing much better economically. The Unemployment Rate is 8 percent other states are 23 or 25 percent. We talk about that meeting early on. A lot of people were focused on this. What inspiredd you . Was that a key moment quick. A couple of days all the governors descended on washington the annual winter meeting of the annual Governors Association. Maybe 48 were g here. This is not on the agenda but we squeezed it in because lets get this emergency meeting in. And right before we had to switch into the tuxedos for the white house dinner. Everybody was complaining we cant do another meeting we have to take a shower and get our us spouses. What we stress how important how important this would be but when we heard from these experts at the federal level what we would be faced with as they talked about this is more contagious than sars and the death toll could be really bad in this will spread like wildfire. We just had the cases in the state of washington and just heard the news in the first nursing home. And every the governor i think most left that meeting that was shocked very aware and concerned we have to take immediate action. We dont even working on it for a month that we are going into high gear. Tell about those challenges getting testing services. And then to build out a facility in university off maryland what are we doing add on National Level to better support the states and the labs . To your point colliding with flu season anyone who has flulike symptoms so now even put more strain on testing. It was an excerpt from the book with the early stages of the pandemic we could have had a Better National testing strategy. We have done a better job getting ramped up. And then the labs are so overloaded taking ten days or longer thats almost worthless. You cant make decisions if they are positive ten days later. Weso developed a longterm strategy in april we acquired facilities all over the state and we have a plan to last us through the fall strategically we built our own lab with these korean tests that are much faster. We can turn around our test when we need to ing o these clusters 24 or 48 hours at the latest. And i am concerned we have to keep working so we dont have these issues in the fall when the flu season comes out. Chapter 38 you observe the following declarations. That thisll be the most important challenge of our life as republican and democrats and suburban everybody could feel the weight of the moment we were all in this together even though we didnt know what it was. There was so much to be done. And we have seen a lot of shifts more recently with the pandemic that we are grappling with. How has this vshaped . On reshape the motive . 2020 has been the most difficult year any of us have probably gone through inf america. To challenge leaders at the federal and state and local level Small Business owners and those have gone to the tragedy to lose a loved one or fighting the illness. And will continue through the fall and early next year until we have a vaccine is the biggest challenge i know ive ever had to deal i with that how we deal with this crisis is a defining moment for america and will take everyone at the federal state and local level all working together to come out of this and bring the economy back to get the Health Crisis under control. A very clear theme is the importance of transparency overwhelming public support because we were so clear to explain the importance of the unfiltered truth. That the way to go about our daily lives will be significantly different and to pretend otherwise is notot honest. Its not just about what you know and with respect to covid. I think its probably one of the most important things at a time like this when there is so much uncertainty and people are scared and worried and they are so many questions. They are looking to leaders and smart people like you to give them clear and unfiltered advice and guidance and they want the facts directly as possible even if you deliver bad news are things they dont want to hear. Its important to be as frank and direct and important as possible. I have said to the president one of the mistakes they made is not communicating clearly. We had great discussions with top leaders in the administration with the Vice President leading the task force the the president says something completely opposite. That communication is essential particularly in a crisis. Ive tried to be straightforward but in a crisis it needs to be more straightforward. And it was a turning point of sorts. The chinese also said it is sustained through human transmission and those doctors that have been infected than that is assigned a community transmission. We are almost exactly six months from that t point. It feels longer but it reinforces how much we dont know only six months into tathis. Given the uncertainty Everyone Wants to send the kids back to school we recognize getting back into the classroom how do you grapple with that to do it safely including with respect to children . We have had to make more i agree it seems a lot longer than six months is amazing how much has happened we still that all the answers and we dont know what will happen next. Given the weight of the decisions it had to make how do we get our kids back to School Safely . With the socialization in the classroom its difficult to do Distance Learning but we have to keep them safe. There is no onesizefitsall. We had a great discussion with redfield at the cdc the state is getting input from all jurisdictions some are more populous or more rural and with some flexibility but i want to get some kids back into the classroom if we can do it i safely but we dont want them to spread infection. Ecthats an issue were trying to grapple with to have a proposed plan. People dont fully appreciate how diverse maryland is. I live i there for many years. You made a deliberate decision to get control and decisionmaking to tailor their response to local resources. Its what the federal government was recommending. All local governments requested that flexibility may have some large jurisdictions. Some are urban or populated suburban. They all have different needs and there isnt a onesizefitsall so with the setse of standards but if the local jurisdiction had higher positivity than they could go slower if they wanted with more restrictions we now have them down at 6 percent is higher than the rest but way down from their peak 90 days ago. Working with the governor of my homey, state. We thought through how to reopen schools. Butt states havent thought if they close them potentially. Im not saying you made decisions to do that but what is the criteria to do that . I dont want to think about it but you have to plan for the worst case scenario. But when we reach a certain point if you have an outbreak or the infection if we have Positivity Rates over certain level we have to catch this before it spreads. You have to have thehe braking mechanism to stop the spread but im sure youll come up a some good suggestions. It will be a challenging situation because we will see outbreaks in the schools likely we dont fully understand the virus in the setting of kids. We also dont understand when it spreads of people get coinfected with the cold and flu. And then to get learning with the new classes. Even if they get together for a brief period of time. We have questions coming in. You talked about your five year anniversary. So there is the presumption so i postponed a pet scan in the middle of the pandemic was supposed to get it april 1st and i waited several months. And how you shape public service. And then with the fellow Cancer Patients going through much tougher battles. With a new calling in life if im governor or not i will stay involved to help. That crowdsourcing is always better than when i could come up with so at what point might day roll back to shut down certain aspects . Our goal is to keep this is open as absolutely necessary. And to put restrictions on capacity and following the rule rules, we have been doing that. So the number of cases are slowly ratcheting up hospitalizations are good death rate is down, we watch all of these on a daily basis trending in the right direction. And then to take whatever actions are necessary. We saw concerning and alarming numbers of people under 35 and put some guidance out to crackdown on those activities. We feel we have to do something i will not hesitate just like we did on the way down but the goal is to keep the economy safely open because the economic crisis is just as bad as the Health Crisis. You were showing the raising Positivity Rate to the younger population have you seen any impact yet quick. It still too early. We never fully opened bars like other states did only a seated distance but young people are going to the bars and parties and not followinggr the rules pico one. Its almostt twice the infection rate it still much lower than what it was we peaked at 26 percent 90 days ago but is still concerning. Have you looked at the data of those coming in . And the delaware beaches and then we see the Southern States are coming up you cant close the borders we have travel advisories and we are advising them not to travel and if they do they should get testeded and watch their symptoms and self foreign t anteam. Coming in from the certain hotspot states is that more difficult . T so keep an eye on that another question from twitter what are you thinking with those extenuating circumstances . And ride at the peak with the masses infection rate i postponed the primary moving it to june and we allowed vote by mail and only open day few precincts they screwed up the spanishspeaking balance to the English Speakers the wrong districts a handful of people showed up with a four hour waitandfdf. So this time all the the above. Will do the applications, early voting and open the polls that we will encourage doing absentee ballots. We dont want to have crowded polling places. But you cant do one or the other but all of the above. Ive been wanting to ask this question for a long time. And with the help of your wife talk about south korea what steps did you have to go through to get a regulatory sign off and working with federal officials to bring in those test and use them . How did you doid y it . Early on there was not enough testing. In early march may be 2800 test done in the whole country the end of march very little Testing Available and thats when we started to reach out. The president said states are on yourn own. I will stand on the Street Corner giving out test. The states are scrambling there was not enough availablelo testing. Negotiating those agencies. And with those that were not through the normal process that we keep that under wraps that the federal government had confiscated supplies including massachusetts. We had to work through the channels. The big centerpiece with the longterm testing strateg strategy, using tens of thousands on the hot spots now two or 3000 per day at the State University lab. We have a supply through the yend of november. If we have to double production we may have to supply more. And then we had Nursing Homes and outbreak in the poultry industry if we really have to get them those are the ones we send to our lab. We have 230 other Testing Centers going through the normal process. And mostly with the resurgence. And right now everybody else is slowing down about ten days. Are you surprised restore shortages seven months later . I am at the spikes and other states they are overloading the lab capacity. Naa they were doing a lot of our testing every month just in the past several weeks. There are too many test coming in from the country we thought we had a four month supply now it will be two months now we need another planeload. But basically the only capacity we have nationally what the hotspots. Even slow on the hotspots. And then to do a good job with the ventilators we had none they produce them rapidly. So we dont have to do these crazy and Creative Things to build our own or outside of the box. Is helping the businesses to grow and utilize the private sector the administration has done pretty good at. But if they are doing those Capital Investments that they need. But my perception is. And we have a huge stockpile a very rapid test. It is difficult. And the transport mediums. And with the right qualifications. Everybody is concerned about school and then to close schools of there is another epidemic this fall. And then to have of the local districts before you have a state level . Thats a good question we dont have a final plan yet the state board of education is independent and autonomous from the governor but b the state board of education put out a plan a month ago coming out with more guidance this week and they will set some parameters local board of educationn has autonomy to make decisions on their own the table do that within certain parameters. Is somebody has a critical situation willab have the ability to put the brakes in the chain the school board says we have an emergency situation nation put the brakes on. We have until august 14 to but those jurisdictions to submitr a plan a lot of them are leaning towards Online Learning and getting back into the classroom and i think they will be looking at hybrids and to be more staggered we dont have all the kids into distance better but we havent seen the recommendations. An important principle . You cant have y all those kids jammed in the small area. How do you spread them out . May be some staggering coming in two or three days and then some business learning to socialize maybe theyre not there every single day. Im not sure yet their smarter people than me that education and health experts. To make the final decisions are august 14. We will have some guidance this week. Im glad to see the president not wearing a mask and that its patrioticst to wear a mask yesterday. Much of the administration has been saying they are important. The its one of the things we can do to try to create our numbers are down and we want to keep maryland open for business and one of the things you can do is wear a mask. There is a chance the economy could shut down again and people could lose their jobs. A lot of people are Wearing Masks. Of course im in a liberal Democratic State and the attitudes may be a little different than in some other states. Your staff is Wearing Masks and that they are in a demographic [laughter] thing out of he your wearing mas because we are probably at parties and bars. And in executing a wheel support and Business Leaders that are headquartered here in maryland. What perspectives were you hoping to capture and what do you think that contributed to . We had a corona virus Recovery Response Team made up of folks like the former commissioner. We had some of the top doctors from Johns Hopkins, great medical facilities here in the state of maryland to the headquarters of the nih, Johns Hopkins, the university of maryland, all these great folks we put all these doctors on the team and also brought in Business Leaders because they wanted the economy back safely. We had the chair of marriott and a number of other leaders that they had these great discussion. I can tell you it was based on input i got from people much smarter than me. It was very helpful. The in some respects we know more if it had time to prepare but if we do have to shut down again we are doing it on the heels of the weakened economy. Im very concerned on the one hand we are much better prepared. Weve aree shockewe were shockeg when we started this. We built an entire infrastructure. The weve built capacity and hospital bed to have plenty of ventilators. Weve added Search Capacity and we are prepared in that respect. Weve also got the economy back on track and we are giving better than almost the rest of the country. I am really concerned that would change in a moment. Im about the fall. Do you feel like the state has been able to stockpile . Im not going to say we wont have shortages, but i think we will not be as completely caught off guard as everybody was the first time. We underestimated. It wasnt just the federal government or the State Government or local, the hospital systems. Nobody was prepared for anything like this in the private sector and now weve learneded a lot. We had the governors associatios association do you think states are going to be Going Forward dependent on the federal government . They need to be prepared next time we cant be called like this again. We talked about that a little bite. And how concerned and what you are lookingnd to do. In our state i think that 29,000 your numbers showed a double, they didnt. Are morern that there cases Positivity Rate percentages going down. Its still a pretty good size. Im notha going to say we are nt concerned about rising cases and dismissive but theres other metrics. We will probably have to do more of them. Is there more ability to create more capacity . We are ramping up and hiring and are going to things at a faster rate and probably have to do some more. Running up on time i want to give you a few minutes to close this out in terms of what you think the most important lessons learned, giving advice to others across the Governors Association what kind of things are you telling governors in states that havent been hit yet . They were able to bring down the virus to low levels. We really crushed it in these states. What are you telling other governors in terms of what they can do and those that havent been affected by this . I have been proud to be able to chair a this group of governors. Theyve really stepped up on the frontlines ofront lines of batte crisis, and i think theyve been in really difficult positions. Positions. All in different ways they try to did a great job to protect their citizens and keep their economy safe. Its been a challenge. Ive led with all of the nations governors over a few months ago. Weve also had lots of individual discussions back and forth with one or two governors, democrats and republicans about how we are doing this and just oneonone questionsfrom groups of governors and regions cooperating. Far be it for me to say what they give you l advice. We share best practices and input from one another and they give me advice almost on a daily basis or ask each other questions and the collaboration has been terrific. With all of the politics you see today, sometimes it seems democrats and republicans that governors worked together in a bipartisan way and trust the pandemic and ive learned from some of my colleagues i think early and aggressive action to a. Y get the best input from the experts, make the decisions, dont hesitate and dont worry about the politics. Im just going to make the best decision for the people of my seastate and i think most govers are. Weve seen a decision in this sort of rational approach in the time we have but in most respectsre the plans for encapsulating whatsca already happening. Didnt you see more collaboration happening now as a consequence is this going to be a new federalism . Its possible. I think to a certain extent its possible to have the flexibility to make the decisions. The its from things we desperately needed all over the globe but having some flex ability is good. Im all for the states rights and power and able to do things on their own. But i think there has been way more cooperation with regional contact with states than youve ever seen before and the governors have stepped up and have been more visible. They are getting things done. You see a lot. I want to thank you for your time. We cant shake hands but thank you very much. This is an hour. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the institute of policy and politics im the executive director in laboratory ufor the policy innovation that can be the best and brightest in the publicprivate academic as well as journalism they gift from our alumni. Todays topic is the path to recovery what is the true state ofhe the economy and it couldnt be more timely