Maryland Gov Hogan suspends unemployment insurance tax increases - Baltimore Business Journal bizjournals.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bizjournals.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
New system will cover nearly 99% of county; Police might encrypt channels
December 10, 2020 | 3:58 pm
December 18, 2020
Nineteen months after major outages crippled Montgomery County’s emergency communication system, the county is ready to switch to a new network that will improve coverage by nearly 20%.
The current, 11-tower system came under scrutiny in May 2019 when Bethesda Beat reported that outages had knocked out nearly all of the radio channels first responders use to communicate for more than half of a day.
Over the next several months, frustrated county officials worked to finalize plans for a new system, with a goal of retiring the current system by the end of 2020. In the meantime, emergency response leaders and county government officials met in closed sessions to create contingency plans in case the radio system suffered a “catastrophic failure.”
Sign Up
Thanks for reading!
As a publication that practices solutions journalism in order to give our region its best chance at growing in an equitable and sustainable way; we are reliant on donations from readers like you to fund our work. Right now, we just need to raise $5,000 more by the end of March.
If everyone who visits the website this week gave just $5, we could cover our costs for the whole year. Can we count on you to help us keep going?
Updated on December 10, 2020 at 9:40 am
NBC Universal, Inc.
It s been nine months since the coronavirus pandemic changed every aspect of our lives, but there’s hope as the Pfizer vaccine approaches clearing a final hurdle before distribution. Download our NBC Washington app for iOS or Android to get alerts for local breaking news and weather.
The preliminary review by the FDA found the vaccine is safe to use and has few side effects.
The advisory panel will make its recommendations by the end of the day and the FDA could grant emergency use authorization as soon as Thursday night or Friday.
Montgomery County COVID-19 Statistics
The Maryland Department of Health reported 544 new COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County Thursday morning. This is the second-highest number of new cases since the pandemic began; 631 new cases were recorded on Dec. 4. The county’s cumulative case count is 37,738.
The county has a rate of 6.15% for positive COVID-19 tests, which is an increase of 0.09 from Wednesday’s rate of 6.06%. The county’s positivity rate is lower than in 19 of Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions.
Montgomery County recorded two new coronavirus-related fatalities Thursday, bringing the death toll to 958.
Montgomery County leads the state in total COVID-19 related fatalities; Prince George’s County has 947 fatalities and the most coronavirus cases in the state with 45,871 cases.