Well, thank you. The number of patients in ICU has fallen to 380, which is also an eight week low. Governor Larry Hogan: (04:03) Especially with all the additional testing. I’m a lifelong small businessman who had never held elective office. Earlier this week we convened the 25th meeting of our coronavirus recovery team, which includes some of the top doctors and public health experts in the nation. Stay six feet apart, wear a face covering, wash your hands frequently, carry hand sanitizer. This plan will require thoughtful planning and intentional collaboration with all parties to ensure the continuum of teaching and learning, and the smooth transition of students returning to the physical school building. We’ve added 180,000 jobs in a couple of months.

And we can and won’t usurp their authority, but based on the health metrics, based on both the Health Department and the State Department of Education, there is really no excuse for not trying to bring kids back. In working with the Maryland Department of Health, we have seen very few positive COVID cases in our childcare facilities, likely due to the rigorous health and safety guidance implemented by the childcare community from the beginning of the pandemic.

Each school system must establish a local stakeholder recovery group that is representative of their schools and the community. So I check a few boxes that are in a vulnerable population. In the coming days as we move forward with the state’s recovery, all childcare providers may reopen as long as they follow the health department protocols listed on the MSD website and also adhere to class size restrictions. We will continue to provide PCR molecular testing for nursing homes. For many, there’s simply no substitute for in-person instruction. Through the bipartisan interstate testing compact, which I put together and announced recently, we have secured 250,000 rapid antigen tests which will make it even easier to detect any potential cases in as little as 15 minutes, enabling us to quickly screen residents, staff, and visitors. That’s a great question. So we’re asking Marylanders to again continue to use common sense and use the best defense that we have against COVID-19 and that’s not to get infected in the first place. We’ve been watching all of these metrics …. Today, I’m excited. Customers need to be seated at least six feet apart, no more than six at a table unless they are household members. Governor Larry Hogan: (38:59) Related coverage: 'We've got bills to pay:' Unemployed Marylanders anxiously waiting for extra $300 per week, More: Extra $300 in unemployment benefits coming this week, Maryland says. So far the most concerning thing were thousands and thousands of people all jammed together, and hopefully we don’t see the kinds of things that we’re concerned about, but we will be watching it very closely. Larry Hogan will address Marylanders today in a COVID-19 press conference.

It’s a great question. We will be also offering guidance on other kinds of openings having to do with youth-. The CDC does not recommend that in a K-12 setting. The Health Department, we are having talks about this on an ongoing basis with a lot of experts, but we ran it by our whole coronavirus recovery team and they believe some of the actions we can take because of our great metrics. So with that, I would like to turn this over to my colleague and to my partner, my very good partner in that and that is a State School Superintendent Dr. Karen Salmon. Governor Larry Hogan: (17:02) Fran Philips: (21:15) The revised plan, which was posted on the MSD website last night, includes several requirements that school systems must follow as they begin to return students and staff back into buildings. [crosstalk 00:44:10]. Governor Larry Hogan: (04:51) We still have to do the diagnostic test, and we will be using for all of those things that I mentioned the LabGenomics test which we do not have a problem with. Speaker 11: (43:20) I want to congratulate him for winning the primary.

Not quite half. Dr. Karen Salmon: (28:13) And Arundel County is at 7.04%, Baltimore County at 6.07%, Frederick County 6.44 and Howard County is at 6.4%.

For the last month and a half 9,000 employees at the Maryland department of health and local health departments with support from all of the state agencies, with support from the national guard have been working 24/7 to help Marylanders get the testing and the contact tracing that they need to the point that we are today. I’m a cancer survivor. One is that nothing is zero risk. Because there were certainly a lot of young people that were involved. And the remaining people, unfortunately, many of them do not qualify, are not going to qualify, and there’s many, many reasons for that. Maryland’s positivity rate has now been under 5%, which is the benchmark set by the World Health Organization and the CDC, for 98 consecutive days, since June 25th. Larry Hogan is putting Maryland's reopening plan on hold as coronavirus cases spike in other states. Thank you. Speaker 10: (42:18) And as we take these additional steps to safely reopen our economy and put more people to work, we want to continue to strongly stress the need to follow CDC and state and local health department requirements and guidelines. The State of Maryland pledges to provide constituents, businesses, customers, and stakeholders with friendly and courteous, timely and responsive, accurate and consistent, accessible and convenient, and truthful and transparent services. Governor Larry Hogan: ()Good evening. Dr. Karen Salmon: (29:58) And even as more and more businesses continued to reopen and as more and more Marylanders returned back to work, all of the key health metrics continued to trend in a very positive direction, which now has us in position to continue with additional stage two reopenings. It’s incumbent upon state and local leaders in education to maintain the emphasis on equity and action for those most affected by current events. I also want to sincerely thank our Maryland state government team, all of the dedicated public servants who literally have been working around the clock seven days a week. I think we’ve done close to 270,000. What do you have to say to the people have simply run out of patience? So it’s not so much a restriction or an order; it’s just that until there’s a vaccine, some people are not going to go. Speaker 9: (41:05) Well, again, all of the county executives are the one that asked for that flexibility. And in 2014 I stepped up to run for governor because I was so frustrated that our state had lost thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs and I pledged to stand up and fight to grow more small businesses and to put more people to work and to turn our economy around. The education community has been able to move alongside the rest of the state. I could barely watch it. On April 24th, we introduced a well thought out, safe, effective, and gradual roadmap to recovery for Maryland. Our hospital surge team is doing contingency planning for any potential flu and/or COVID surge, and to learn more, Marylanders can visit health.maryland.gov/flu. So I know that the state Department of Labor is working. Governor Larry Hogan: (36:44) I just finished leading my 35th crisis call with America’s governors this afternoon, I think in 90 days. Governor Larry Hogan: (38:10) Governor Larry Hogan: (03:05) They’re on our dashboard, so everybody gets to watch these things as we do. But they are the highest, and hopefully we’ll see them drop into single digits like everyone else in the next few days. Governor Larry Hogan: (14:22)

Governor Larry Hogan: (36:27) [inaudible 00:40:31] some of the small businesses, especially involved, that still are not able to reopen and hanging on by a thread, and yet they’ve seen outside their windows, crowds of people [inaudible 00:40:41]-. And Baltimore city is the only place in the state that has not moved. It has been under 4% for 54 consecutive days, since August 8th. Even more importantly, our COVID hospitalizations have now dropped to 960, below 1000 for the first time, since April 10th, the lowest level in 61 days. Examples of some of that guidance are pretty straightforward. I can tell that you most of the polling shows that a large majority of people do not want to go back and eat at a restaurant. Governor Larry Hogan’s Newsletter; Transcript: October 1 Press Conference. So, I think we’ll maybe have a chat with the mayor and see if he can’t move along, because he’s actually in much better shape than others. Unfortunately, there were citizen lawsuits that delayed the project for 2 years, and that cost about $800 million. The state is going to finish the job. Rapid antigen testing in on the agenda for discussion. We went from 49th out of 50 States in overall economic performance to having the best years for business in Maryland in more than a decade, best years for job growth in 15 years.

Speaker 15: (44:55) Our health experts are strongly encouraging anyone who attended any of the protests or gatherings in Maryland over the past two weeks to immediately get tested for the Coronavirus, and they were also advised to try to avoid contact with vulnerable populations, such as older people and those with underlying conditions. We’ve been watching all of these metrics on a daily basis. I had an hour long conversation with Senator Cardin last week about problems at the federal level. Gov. Governor Larry Hogan: (18:19) We will detail infection control activities for every facility and the kind of signage that would need to be up for example in a gym to remind clients about social distancing and about hand hygiene. So once again, I’ll end with three thoughts. Dr. Karen Salmon: (28:49)