ANNAPOLIS, MD—Governor Larry Hogan held a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to address Maryland’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Governor Hogan announced that, on Friday, he would introduce his Maryland Strong Roadmap to Recovery. The plan was developed in consultation with doctors and public health experts and it will be a safe, effective, and gradual plan to allow the state to reopen, to rebuild, and to recover as soon as it is safe to do so.

The governor’s recovery plan has 4 components that must be solidly in place before lifting any restrictions:

• Expanded testing
• Increased hospital surge capacity
• Increased supply of PPE
• Robust contact tracing operation

Governor Hogan announced that the 250-bed field hospital at the Baltimore Convention Center is complete and staffed, and will be admitting patients who no longer require hospitalization but need a location to complete their care and fully recover.

The State of Maryland authorized a contract with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to quadruple its present disease investigation capability in order to contact up to 1,000 new cases per day.

Governor Hogan also announced the launch of a state-of-the-art contact tracing platform called ‘COVID Link’ which will assist in monitoring and collecting information about people who test positive.

‘COVID Link’ will utilize medical data from the Chesapeake Regional Information System for Patients (CRISP). Maryland’s 1,000 contact tracers will be trained to make sure all info is collected in accordance with regulations for the security and privacy of medical data.

“With these crucial components now firmly in place, on Friday we will be introducing our ‘Maryland Strong: Roadmap to Recovery’ which will lead us safely out of this pandemic and into a brighter, more hopeful future,” said Governor Hogan.

The video from the press conference can be viewed below…