About the challenges we face as a country grappling with the covid pandemic and some of the things that weve done to deal with their epidemic this is unprecedented time of the Global Pandemic the Intelligence Community has long warned us about the risks of a pandemic and put it on par with weapons of mass destruction in counterterrorism and Cyber Attacks as much as we thought we were prepared for this as a nation, we found going through this episode we really did not have all the preparations that we thought we had. We have been unable to find as a nation a medium thats causing death and suffering thats acceptable to enough people to have some sort of approach that enough people find socially and culturally and economically acceptable. For continuing to see spread around the nation particularly in the south right now. Marilyn is among states it have grappled with epidemic spread and bring virus levels down. We i wanted to talk to the governor today about the things he did to try to a lot of activity in the states to bring back to maryland or and try to open schools and restart the economy and do the things that are people continued risk from the epidemic. So governor thank you for joining us and when to start with the question just generally, what do you think is going to evolve . What are you looking out of respect to the following the risks right now . So first of all, doctor godley, let me thank you for hosting here today. I want to thank aei, its a real honor to be here with you. Thank you for your service or giving us advice throughout this entire thing and serving on the Coronavirus Task force. I think youre one of the most important voices and leaders in this entire pandemic so thank you for everything you have done is not a pleasure working with you i look forward to the discussion today. I think as we move forward we are as concerned as everybody else about whats happening around the rest of the country. We were very early and aggressive in going after this thanks to the advice from smart people like you, aeis plan that they put out early on we took a lot of advice with some of our friends from John Hopkins University of maryland smart doctors and epidemiologists with Public Health officials, we took early and aggressive action that really did help dampen the curve so far our numbers are looking pretty good are relatively flat in a declining level for at least three weeks now. how this is going to affect us when we run into the flu season. As you know, nowhere near behind us. We will be struggling with us for a long time. He took a little bit about what marilyn did to try to get the levels down. What you think the things that were successful. Anything different than what other states might have done that wouldve the sort of Lessons Learned. Gov. Larry hogan we have may have taken action quicker than other states and little bit more aggressive. With the very first day, that we got her very first case and first follow we started watching this in early january when we first started hearing about what was going on in china. We had a great governors association. A really great presentation from some of the federal governments experts. They kinda gave us an awareness of what might be happening. And advise the governors and we were watching it and on top of it, our emergency management, our team, our old cabinet in her department was ready entering to be prepared in advance. What are first case broke out in march, i immediately within hours declared a state of emergency. And it set off a succession of anything 40 executive orders rolling back and tightening down things every time he got advice on to help us stabilize and keep people safe. We took actions quickly. I think we simultaneously close our schools in the first ones to do so here and in ohio. We took action to first shut down casinos and arguments in the restaurants and bars. And then stay at home orders and asking at all of those kinds of things. Then we got a save which you helped us come up with really good advice on. A safe gradual and effective reopening plan. It still kept many of those things and place. And i weve had our economy open, 98 percent of our economy is allowed to open. But in a safe and manageable way. We kept all of her essential business is open throughout this pandemic. While obviously how it has impacted us economically, were doing better economically as well. Our employment is at 8 percent in many states are at 23 or 25 percent. You talk about bringing in those experts early on. Before a lot of people were focused on this. What inspired you to do this. Was not in the meeting. Was a key moment. It. Gov. Larry hogan a couple of days were all of the governors were at washington. It was the national meeting. We had a most all of the governors here. Maybe 48 of the governors or so. With a full agenda. We squeezed it in. It because it was not on the agenda. We wanted to get this emergency meeting end. And we had doctor redfield. We had dr. Fauci and a couple of other key leaders from the Administration Come and talk to us. And is right before we had to switch into sexy is to go to the white house dinner that night. That was the name annual event. Everybody was talking about that pretty retirement changing because of your spouses and get ready to go to this dinner. But we stressed how important part of this is going to be. And when we heard from these experts what we were going to be faced with that they talk about, this was essentially more contagious than stars and that the difficult tolls could be really bad. But this was going to be spreading like wildfire. At a i think we had just said the cases in the state of washington and we had just heard the news about the outbreak in the first nursing home that was all of the television. But it wasnt yet to spread across the country. In every governor most of the governors left that day left that meeting, somewhat shocked. And was very aware and concerned about we have got to take immediate action. I know i came back to my office the day after that we are a been it for a month or so and said we are going into high gear. Dr. Scott gottlieb you talked about the challenges and in your book and getting Testing Services in two states and into the country. The state has done a lot of better than other states. In the university of maryland, do additional testing. When you think we can be doing at a national level. What can we better support the states to get more testing as we head into the fall. Because team point, when this glides with the flu season, everyone who has any kind of flulike symptoms, and now going to get ruled out for covid19 so we will need to put more strain on testing. Gov. Larry hogan so in the Washington Post a few days ago, really was about the current story. It was an exit for the book talking about the early stages of this pandemic. I think we couldve taken more steps. In the National Testing strategy. I think that we have done a better job of getting testing ramped up not only in our state throughout the country. Now running into problems the interstates are having shortages. In the labs are so overloaded that theyre taking up to ten days or even longer to get test back. This almost worthless. You cannot really make decisions based on somebody that had a positive ten days late. So we here developed a longterm testing strategy back in april. We are in strategic labs and other facilities all over our state. We have a plan last us truthful. Strategically because we are concerned. We build our own lab at the university of maryland with stateoftheart you robotics utilizing these tests that weve acquired. Much faster. We can turn that around our testing we need to and these outbreaks and clusters of 24 hours pretty maybe 48 hours of the latest. Forcing these five it labs backed up for ten days or two weeks. Im concerned that we will have to keep working so that we dont have these issues when flu season comes out. Youve observed the following declaration in the 24 counties. In the pandemic will be the most important challenge of their lives. As diverse a group of as we are every one of these local leaders can feel the weight of the moment. Were all in this together. Even if none of us know exactly what this was. Theres just so much to be done. We see a lot of shifts in the public mood in this country over the last decade or so. Missing a lot of recently and result of the pandemic that we are grappling with. What do you think the majority of voters are looking for now. And how does this pandemic sort of shape the public mood if you will. Gov. Larry hogan that is a great question. 2020 is been the most difficult year than any of us and probably gone through. Everybody in america. It is really challenged lead role at the federal state and local levels puts really challenged everyday americans. Small business owners, people who have lost their jobs, people who have gone through the tragedy of losing a loved one. Or going through and finding his eldest. And impacted every aspect of society. Its going to continue to do so for quite some time. I believe continuing through the fall and early next year until beginning get a vaccine. None of us never really expected to go through this print is the biggest challenge i know ive ever had to deal with. I have been through some challenges before. I think how we deal with this crisis is going to be a defining moment for america. Everybody the state and local level and private sector to work to gather with us. In my our economy back into the Health Crisis under control. On a touch of the book again if i may. And very clear theme in this book is the importance of transparency. Some page 293, but god overwhelming public support after shutting down the Indoor Dining in the gyms and the movie theaters because we were so clear in explaining the reasoning for this drastic action. Unfiltered truth. And you received in your initial briefings, talk about leveling with the americans. In explaining the way we go about our daily lives the way we work and going to be significantly friend. To pretend otherwise just would not be honest. Would you say if you are given advice with the leaders about this court sort of candor at this moment of crisis leveling with people. Not just what you know and collective action but also what we do not know which is a lot of things which had respect to covid19. Speech of thing is one of the most important things at a time like this when there is so much uncertainty in the people are scared, theyre white about with the future is. And have so many questions. And theyre looking to leaders and two smart people like you dont know much about these diseases than they do to give them clear unfiltered advice and guidance in the what the facts and as directly as possible even if you are delivering bad news or things that they do not want to hear. I think it is important to be as frank and direct as possible. And i have said and not just be critical. But i have said to the preside president , one of the mistakes and they have made is not communicating clearly. Would have a great discussion with some of the top leaders in the administration, the Vice President leading the Coronavirus Task force and the president would Say Something most completely opposite that all of them were saying. Theyre not communicating, thats essential. Particularly in a crisis. And ive tried to be very straightforward and direct all the time. But in a crisis, it is even more important. January 19th of this year rated them sedately and ousted lujan but the cases had gone from 50 2200. I remember the phone calls that they made right after that because first first time the chinese also said that they believe theres a human transmission. So the first and we have evidence that there was transmission, the money i believe it was actually asked that about a dozen or so doctors had been infected which is always an indication that theres human to human transmission. Ross exactly six months from that point which is remarkable is that shorter the period of time. And has longer exactly. And reinforces how much we do not know. Were only six months into this with a novel virus. Given all of the uncertainties, everyone was to send the kids back to school. Your focus on that. We recognize the importance of getting kids back into the classroom. How you appling with that and try to get kids back into school but do it safely. Given the fact that theres a lot of unknowns including with respect to children. Gov. Larry hogan we had to make so many will for slavery. Doesnt seem like six months. It feels like three years. Its amazing how much has happened since then. We still dont know the answers. And what the end is not in sight. And we do not know what is going happen next. Given all of the weight of the businesses live decisions we had to make this one of the most difficult about how we get our kids back to school safely. We all want to get her kids learning again. We can go forever without kids getting into the socialization back with each other in the classroom. Its difficult to do distancelearning. I think were going to watch the numbers very carefully in our state superintendent of schools is looking at, while we had a great discussion with Robert Redfield at the cdc. They have good guidelines and had a good discussion with Vice President and the car the virus task force taking all of that advice. And from her local School Jurisdiction some of which are in different situations than others. Some are really good distancelearning. And some are more populous and some are more rural and some have different issues. We will probably have flexibility about what Certain School system to but i want to get some kids back into the classroom if we can do it safely. We dont have kids spreading this infection. That is an issue that were going to be trying to grapple with over the next few weeks. We faster local School Systems to submit proposed plans and were going to give them flexibility. Were also going to set some guidelines. Ice to live in maryland for many years. Its a very diverse state. Very diverse economy. You made a deliberate decision to try to give a lot of control decisionmaking down to local authorities in the state to try to tailor start of the response based on local needs and customs and resources. Is not the case here. Speedos with the federal government was recommending. Theyre all talking our county by county instead of statebystate. In our state, all of our local governments requested authority and taxability. We have large jurisdictions. In larger than some states. And some are almost urban or very populated suburban. Very rural they all have different needs. Simply set the set of standards that you must do these things. But in the local date jurisdiction if they had a higher positivity. Oxide washington, almost a 30 percent positivity, they could go slower if they wanted to have more restrictions that they wanted to. We now have them down to 6 percent. It is higher than the rest of the state but is way way down from their peak 90 days ago. Anything that plays into schools. Sorry, we lost you by the way. We have thought through how to reopen schools. I think talking to a lot of governors. They havent necessarily thought about how they will close schools again potentially. Im not saying that youve necessarily made decisions that he would do that. Think some of the criteria would be. Gov. Larry hogan we have been thinking about that. The one thing about it but again you have to plan for the worst case scenario. I wanted to get your input. And maybe talk after this online. When we reach a certain of points. If you or an infection in the school if it reaches a certain level. Delete the positivity freights in that area there over a certain level. You have to have some breaks to say that weve got to catch this before it spreads. And if you going to open schools, event have a braking mechanism. To stop the spread. Keep kids safe. Im sure youre going to come up with some good suggestions for us. Is going to be a challenging situation heading into the vault these are likely to see operates in the schools. We do not fully understand in the setting of kids. We also did understand what is going to look like when spreads when people start to get co infected. So i think its very important to get kids back in the when i know you a great. Even for brief period of time get them socialize, get the morning and the new classes. And if we go to a distance model, it will be important to get them together for brief period of time. We have parents in venice a home of the kids. They cant get into the workplace. Theres so many different factors out there. And we have some questions coming in. I want to get to that pretty soon. Thinking about my questions. You tweeted recently about your five Year Anniversary from finishing chemotherapy. I remember that. You never forget that last visit. His poignant because you when youre five years out as you know, there is a presumption that you sort of have beaten the cancer. And i had it come back. Let me interrupt and site i postponed that because it is the middle of the pandemic. Im supposed to go get april 1st and waited several months because of the overloaded hospitals. Youve obviously had cancer later in life. And having been a private businessman heard and only of governor for five months. You think it shape the way you think about Public Service in a different way. It was you in a different sort of path. Im sure it impacted you. After going to but it made me realize that the things that are important in life. And i get the chance to meet so many other fellow Cancer Patients are going through much tougher battles than my own and change me. Im a much more empathetic and i think i got a new calling in life whether i am governor or not going to stay involved in helping raise money and awareness and find a cure to some of these terrible diseases. Some some questions from twitter. The probably be better than mine. The crowd its always better than what i can come up with. Some people being better prepared in the fault of what point do you think marilyn might consider rolling back some of the openings are shutting down certain aspects of the businesses again. Gov. Larry hogan so our goal would be to try to keep businesses open and the economy unless its absolutely necessary. Since weve been aggressive on masking and distancing and putting restrictions on capacity in place brightness since our state has been following the rules. Locally. We have been doing massive amounts of testing out pretty to have times more than what we were last month. Our number of cases have slowly ratcheting up in a positivity is not. Our hospitalizations are good in icu is good in our death rate is down pretty we watch all of these numbers on a daily basis. They are all trading the right direction unlike other states but since we start to see numbers that do not look good, its going to cause us to take whatever actions are necessary. We saw concerning in alarming numbers of people under 35. And we put guidance out. And if i feel like we have to do something. Im not going to hesitate to do just like we did in the way down. But my goal to keep the economy safely open. Because economic crisis is nearly as bad or just as bad as the Health Crisis. Youre showing me the rising positivity rates in the general population. Have you seen any impact from the actions are still too early. Speech of weve never reopened bars. We only had seated distance capacity restriction fragment still young people are gravitating to these bars and parties and for people over 35, more like at 3 percent or 80point something infection. Its almost twice that at sixpoint something. So it is still much lower than it was rated it peaked at 26 percent. But still concerning that there still a little bit of the cap. Have you looked at the data. New york, big fellow from florida. Gov. Larry hogan worsening so that. Our border states and were saying some activity in the beaches in delaware beaches. Having some issues that the middle of the beaches of people coming up in some of the southern states. It was happening from new york and new jersey back when they were hot and now we are seeing some states coming up. You cant close your borders. Theyre keeping an eye. We actually have trouble advisories and people coming in and were advising them not to travel and if they do they should get tested. And they should watch their symptoms and try to self quarantine. Obviously can put it place people traveling from other states. Like new york at amendatory quarantine for it is more difficult to do now. Gov. Larry hogan it is difficult to enforce it. Its not as big of an issue but we are certainly putting out advisories and warnings and trying to message to people that they are to be cautious. Another question from twitter. What are you thinking about with how voting will unfold in the fall given the extension waiting circumstances. Gov. Larry hogan said during the height of the pandemic we are supposed to have a primary the peak. Massive infection rate. I signed an executive order postponing it to a couple later to jen. We allowed for vote by mail for you and the only open up a few briefing. They screwed up the vote by mail. Its a spanishspeaking balance to the English Speakers and they got the wrong district. It was a disaster. It a bunch of people showed up in a handful of precincts and had for our weights. Were going to mail out applications, for everybody bring him early voting, safely distance and were going to open the polls in case somebody had to vote. Were going to encourage during the absentee ballots which weve been doing here for 20 years. Going to encourage early voting. And people we dont want to have crowding polling places. Going to watch as. And he try to keep everybody safe. Going to do all of the above. We talk a lot about the stories from south korea with the help of your wife. Preventive steps did you have to go through in terms of getting regulatory sunup and working with some federal officials to bring this to san and to be able to use that. How did you do it. Gov. Larry hogan is a nightmare. When we first, pointed out early on, when i talk about this in the book. There is not enough. So in early march, like 2800 test don. In the end of march, theres very little testing. And at one point, stays on your own company during testing. The states were scrabbling around. Theres not enough available testing so we were able to while we spent 22 days negotiating. The fda had been given flexibility to the states to be able to use things that were not through the normal process which is what we did. But the federal government had confiscated some supplies that are coming into other states. Including massachusetts. We didnt want that to happen presume and work through the channels that we kept a low profile. In the end of the story, his big centerpiece of a longterm testing. We built a stateoftheart lab with robotics rated music tens of thousands of these on our hottest spots. Raising two or 3000 today and state labs and university. And we have a supply to take us all of the way through the end of november and last week for the slow labs are happening everywhere else. We have to double of our production. We may have to spy more tests and use them up faster than we anticipated. What is flowing through those Testing Centers. Gov. Larry hogan so when we go in, were doing nursing homes, and are breaking up on street ministry. We need to get the because of the ones we are sending to our labs. We also have 230 other Testing Centers going through the normal process that goes through that poor or all of these different facility so its a part of our longterm testing strategy. It. So the testicles through those labs mostly the Public Health surveillance and your searching. Gov. Larry hogan when they need them faster. Everybody else is down to about ten days and sometimes longer. Are you surprised were still facing these testing shortages. Gov. Larry hogan they spikes in other states, theyre overloading the lab capacities. These National Labs pretty were doing a great job by the way. They were doing a lot of our testing every month braided just in the past several weeks. Since the spikes came up. They have come to a halt because they have too many tests coming in from around the country. It caused us to have to wrap up our own internal testing. It will probably going to know, what we thought we had a fourmonth spine we probably going to use them up into. And probably order some more. It seems like what is happening and you might have more insight to this. At the commercial labs, basically the only one capacity we have in this country. And the public get away from others. But during the slow and those hotspots. I think thats a place with the federal government and possibly help. It a good job and rubbing up with the defense production act on ventilators. They really produce. We had none they produce them rapidly. If the federal government helps speed up the that capacity can help all of the states and private maps and get them done faster. We dont have to do these crazy Creative Things like finding our own or building our own and outside of the box things. And is helping these businesses grow and utilize in the private sector which is something the administration has done pretty good at. Theres a question whether they are making the Capital Investments that they need to sort of have the increases of their throughputs but part of bit is there help rated mys perception is an eight seat what you think of this is the part of that bottleneck, to run a lab you need not tax. So we had the sophisticated machines, hugest our file with very sensitive, very rapid test preventive loan demand. This hiring the people. Who have the skills pretty was difficult. That was one of the issues produce many parts of finding the swabs, transport mediums. The tubes the reagents, all of these different parts. And the people, the talent, that is a hard part everywhere. The shortage of people with the right qualifications. s a lot of questions about schools. In getting the kids back into the classrooms but also when is the decision going to be made to close at schools if we do have another epidemic. This fall, and do you envision that being state legislation or a person might local districts making decisions because of the outbreaks from local parts of the states for closing schools before you reach a state level decision. Gov. Larry hogan will probably and we have a come out with our final plan yet. Our state board of education by the way their independent and autonomous from the governor. But the state board of education, put out a plan about a month ago. And they will come out with more guidance this week. In fact may be as soon as tomorrow. Theyre going to set some parameters the going to give flexibility. They have Real Authority and autonomy is from our government to make decisions on their own that theyre going to do it within certain parameters. I think were going to allow if somebody has a critical situation, really the local school board will have the ability to put the brakes in the chain and say our Health Department is school board says with an emergency situation they shouldnt have to wait to run it up the chain. They should be able to put the bricks on. What are some of the things of the schools are doing to try to create a safe environment. Gov. Larry hogan they have until august 14th template that 24 jurisdictions to some of the plans. I think we have five or six who have submitted plans. A lot of them running more towards Online Learning and opposed to getting back to the classrooms. I think for the rural districts want to get the kids back into the roof classrooms. I think may be staggered where youre coming in for a couple of days and switching of days so we dont have all of the kids is that you can distance better. But weve not seen all of the recommendations. We have not seen the final decisions of the state. Do you think Talcott School bit. It. You cant have all of this kids fault jammed into the small areas. Honeys with amount predict theyve got too staggering. Maybe the common for two or three days and then they go back and do some Distance Learning as you said. Get them back and socialized but maybe theyre not there every single day. They can go followup and bring in the other kids next a friend of mr. Yet. Theyre smarter people than me there education experts in Health Experts that will be making recommendations. School year is approaching. Gov. Larry hogan the final plans are supposed to be in august 14th. They will have some guidance this week. Obviously its easier in some districts. Depending on with the physical infrastructure is rated keeping kids in the same counterparts. Do they have pods. That certainly works and so certain areas and i think some of the local boards are doing that. And i think you have to wear masks. I dont see how you get around it. Gov. Larry hogan what is the adherence look like. Gov. Larry hogan is. In our states to wearing the mask. I dont know why i dont know why its become such a political issue. Im glad to see the president now wearing a mask. A sentence patriotic to her mask yesterday. I know the most of the administration has been saying that masking is important. I know youve been a big proponent of that. We had her mask on but we just got off of the a repair. But most of the people are following it. I think thats like the numbers are down instead of skyrocketing up or they wont were the masts. It seems like the one thing that we can do collectively. And preserve what is most important to us. So we started up 90 percent of our economy. Gov. Larry hogan leave want to keep us open for business and you can wear a mask. If you dont follow the distancing in a doorway mess, theres a chance economy content and again. And people could lose our jobs will have people get sick. It doesnt make any sense. And he looked at the data. Gov. Larry hogan i dont know if they have exact numbers but if you can just walk around anatomically and sing a lot of people here are Wearing Masks pretty smart very liberal state even im a republican governor. Inanities might be all different here than some other states. I know your staff is Wearing Masks. [laughter]. Gov. Larry hogan thank god theyre Wearing Masks. Because the probably parties mars. [laughter]. Gov. Larry hogan and executing the plan, you talk about guidance from a lot of variety of stakeholders. People in the state, sort of a perk of having Johns Hopkins and other great institutions here in the state pretty also have business leaders, under armor who is also been here in maryland. What perspectives were you hoping to capture. Gov. Larry hogan is huge. Personal thank you for serving. We had a Coronavirus Recovery TeamResponse Team is made up of folks like the former fda commissioner. And we had some of the top doctors from Johns Hopkins pretty great medical facilities here in the state of maryland. When ahead quarters of fda. Clamp john hopkins. University of maryland. All of these great smart box. We also brought in top business leaders. When the chairman of the marriott which is headquartered here. The chairman of under armor. A number of other leaders. These great discussions on what a weekly basis getting input about the health side and the business side. And with that all of the decisions are made, i can tell you it was based on input i got from people much smarter than me. And who knew more about this in health side. We had to make decisions pretty quickly. Theres no time to debate right around pass legislation. And make decisions quickly. And on one of the best smartest people around me and so that i can make the best decision. It was very helpful to the entire response to the pandemic. In some respects anymore, we have had time to prepare for another respects, you have to shut down again, returning it on the heels of a more weekend economy. Gov. Larry hogan i am very concerned on the one hand, were much better prepared. We were shocked and hit with nothing when we started this. So we built an entire infrastructure. In the state of maryland, never have acquired swabs and mass and ppe wouldnt have to deal with all of these things that we have been dealing with for six months. But only built lab capacity, and 6000 more hospital beds and plenty of ventilators. Added Surge Capacity and field hospitals. Where repaired in that perspective. In case something flares up peoples about our economy back on track were doing better than think most of the states in the country and better almost 30 percent better than the rest of the country but i am really concerned that could change in a moment if this things gets back to the way it was. And that is a possibility looks like. So im worried that. They were better prepared very concerned about another shut down in about another flare up. Do you feel like the state has been able to stockpile equipment pretty. Gov. Larry hogan im not going to say they were might not going to have shortages again. I think were not going to be is completely caught off guard and we were like the first time. New york city hospital, the pandemic plans have been using two times the normal ppe and reporting to about 25 times the normal amount. So things that we had on the shelves, we underestimated the the true impact. Gov. Larry hogan the hospital systems, nobody really was prepared for anything like this. In the private sector, the private sector and public sector. And we have a lot with are not were going to be prepared the next am not. At least no more than the first time. Do you think the states are going to behave differently Going Forward in terms of making their own preparations and not being dependent on the federal government. Gov. Larry hogan i sure hope so. I think the federal government needs to be more prepared next on pretty think the states need to be prepared next time. I think the hospital systems. Almost Everybody Needs to learn from the experience. It we cannot be caught like this again. A twitter question from shelley, and of the national survivorship. Personal thank you for your leadership. Wanted me to ask you what you make of the recent uptick in cases here. And how concerned you are and what you are looking to do to do about that. Its me tips so in our state, i think yesterday or the day before, almost 9000 fast and hard cases without. But they actually went up at a slower craig said when you move from 15000 cases, to 30000, new numbers should double. They do not. When up at a slower rate. We are concerned that there are more but in the positivity cases, the numbers are going down pretty so that still a good sign. As for the city were not concerned about rising cases. But there are other metrics than the ones we look at for the positivity they, hospitalizations, icus and debts which are lagging a little bit. So where cautiously watching those numbers. To seek testing to build in the state pretty. Gov. Larry hogan i think we will continue to ramp up our own testing because of the slowdowns. But i think we are all going to be back to the testing problem again because we have not addressed the issues. Reassuring. Right now youre able to get testing into the places where you feel. Gov. Larry hogan weve opened up 230 Testing Centers across the state. Almost any corner of the state you can go. We went from almost zero testing to almost 25 to 30000 date. Fourmac concerned about the slope labs which is why are probably going to have to do more of them ourselves. Is there more ability to create more love capacity. Gov. Larry hogan were wrapping up, they were hiring twice as many people probably going to use of these things in a faster rate than we thought. We will have to use more. And if i labor. Its been really tough to think we doubled the staff a week or two. Went running up on time. So on to give you a few minutes to close this out here. In terms of what you think some of the most important Lessons Learned through this enemy. You giving advice to other governors across the association. All kinds of things are you telling governors say they have not been hit yet. Because this has been hit along with the whole northeast and bring on the virus levels to sort of low levels. We really crushed the virus in the states freewa what are you g the other governors. The ones who have not yet been affected by it. First full the me say theyve been really proud. Speech of to be able to share this group of governors. And governors on both sides of the aisle. I think they been really stepped up on the frontlines. Battling this crisis. And really difficult position by think they have all in different ways tried to do a great job in protecting their citizens and keep their people safe. A blood he some calls of all of the nations governors which is a lot. Just over a few month. And probably more than they have done in ten years. And we also have lots of individual discussions back and forth with one or two governors, democrats and republicans about how are you doing with us. Have you seen this issue. Just one on one questions pretty groups of governors in regions cooperating. As far be it for me to say love this is what ive done of give you advice. We share input from one another to give each other advice almost on a daily basis. The collaboration has been terrific and with all of the divisive politics ec today and sometimes it seems like in washington, as all democrats and republicans and nothing seems to get done sometimes in progress. The governors really Work Together in a bipartisan way. This pandemic has been amazing ive learned from some of my colleagues. And ive shared some things to prayed sometimes you may make the wrong decision but waiting is definitely nothing to do. Get the best and foot the experts. Make a quick decision and dont hesitate and dont worry mother politics. People are going to be mad. People on both sides are not going to like what you do. I dont care about the politics. And just try to make the best decision for the people in my state. I think most governors, thats what they are doing introduced. Gov. Larry hogan weve seen a very deliberate decision to leave a lot of the Decision Making led to the states. And on a national approach. At times we have but in most respects, sort of plans were encapsulating what was already underway in the states. The private sector. You see more collaboration among the governors to create regional responses happening now will this be a new federalism if you will write it. Gov. Larry hogan that is possible. To a certain extent, the governors are the front lines. It is okay for us to be able to have the folks ability to make decisions. But there were certain issues where the federal government could have played more of a role with a National Strategy that wouldve been helpful. Like testing. So we wouldnt haves 50 states competing with another one in american strange market for things that we desperately needed. Although. But having possibility is good. Im all for the states rights and having more power amenable to do things on their own. But i think there has been way more cooperation with regional compacts with the states and you never seen before. And i think the governors have also stepped up and been more than played were literal. And there like hate these guys are actually getting things done. And used to sleep with the senators and congressmen are doing washington. The governors are actually doing everything everyday things in the stone state. , thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership. And i cant shake hands with thank you very much. And i are involved. Mr. Durbin madam president . The presiding officer the senator from illinois. Mr. Durbin madam president , john lewis was a great american, but there was a humility in his heart that showed his greatness even more. He gave speeches that stirred a nation but who among us can forget his trademark speech explaining how as a young man growing up on a farm he practices public speaking to an audience of chickens. He told that story over and over again. And john lewis used to say, people come up to me in the airport and say im going to cry, im going to pass out. Johns reply was, please dont pass out. Im not a doctor. And