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