By Steuart Pittman
The December 9 Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Maryland Hospital Impact modeling update states clearly that closing bars and restaurants is an “extremely effective policy” in efforts to prevent what its authors have called a “catastrophic scenario” from becoming reality at hospitals across the state.
The report’s projections of 10,000 COVID patients needing hospitalization in a statewide system that is designed for 8,000 non-COVID patients suggests that difficult decisions about who gets served will need to be made very soon.
Governor Hogan is wise to leave those decisions to health professionals. Their MeNTS scoring system, short for Medically Necessary Time Sensitive, awards scores on 21 factors related to the procedure, the disease, and the patient. These are the choices being made at hospitals across the country as a result of our failure to slow the spread of this virus.
The hospitalization projections for our county and state could be wrong, and I fervently hope that they are, but waiting to find out before acting decisively to reduce the spread is like surrendering weapons on the way to battle. It’s the social gatherings and dining in public places today that generate the positive cases, and eventually the hospitalizations and deaths, that we must prevent in late January and February.
In other words, the unpopular decisions that I and many other state and local officials across this country have made in recent days, particularly the ones suspending maskless dining in public places, are a strategy to protect our people. My own view is that protecting public safety and health is the most fundamental obligation of government, regardless of political consequence.
That’s why I was shocked this week to read the words of Judge William C. Mulford, a former Anne Arundel County Councilman who has served on the Fifth Circuit Court since 2006. Judge Mulford wrote that it appeared “arbitrary and capricious” to prevent public gatherings without masks by suspending indoor dining for a month. Judge Mulford issued a temporary restraining order preventing the suspension from taking effect until he is able to conduct a full hearing on December 28. Judge Mulford’s order could not have come at a worse time from a public health perspective.
Dr. Eili Klein and Gary Lin write as their conclusion to the above-referenced report, “The potential of interventions to change the trajectory of the epidemic in Maryland are waning. Evidence from across the country and elsewhere suggests that closing restaurants/bars and other places where people gather without masks can make a difference. With the vaccine distribution set to start in the next few weeks, any intervention is buying time and saving lives.”
It’s too late for political games. It’s too late for drawn out legal battles. And this is no time to complain about what should have been done. I and each and every one of us must decide what we can do now, to 1) slow the spread of this virus, and 2) provide assistance to the people who are suffering the economic consequences of this battle.
On the former, we must stop gathering without masks and we must maintain social distance. That means respecting the Governor’s new limits on gatherings and travel, and it means avoiding dining in restaurants, whether they are open or closed.
On the latter, we must support our local businesses and our nonprofit organizations if we have the means to do so. Order takeout, tip generously, and please donate to nonprofit aid organizations generously.
Your county government will not rest. At a recent emergency staff meeting we created a $2 million Restaurant Workers Relief debit card assistance program, reopened the Toys for Tots request portal facilitating delivery of gifts to 1,038 children of restaurant workers, and agreed to propose emergency legislation to suspend price gouging by takeout delivery services. That was all after distributing $11 million in direct aid to restaurant owners.
Yesterday morning I helped our Workforce Development Team distribute $500 debit cards to 1200 struggling families, many of whom are awaiting the repair of a broken state unemployment insurance distribution system, and a delayed federal response.
“Division delays recovery,” were the words of disaster recovery expert Dr. George Everly at one of our mental health town halls early in the pandemic.
It’s time for us to recover, and we will.