Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has signed an executive order requiring all employees and customers of essential retail businesses to wear a face covering.
The executive order will take effect at 7:00am on Saturday April 18, 2020. In addition to stores, the order also requires their use on all forms of public transportation in the State of Maryland.
The Governor reiterated the daily numbers for Maryland and said that while cases and deaths are still increasing, they are increasing at reduced rates which is encouraging. They have also seen signs of hospitalizations stabilizing.
Hogan discussed recovery for Maryland and will be developing a plan next week on how to get the economy re-started. He stressed that it would be a slow and deliberate process to insure that we do not see a rebound of infections.
He said that there would be 4 prongs to re-opening the state, some of which are well underway:
- Expanded Testing
- Increasing the hospital surge capacity to the 6000 beds
- Ramp up the supply of PPE
- Development of a robust contact tracking effort
