'Most Dangerous Time' | Marylanders Most At-Risk For COVID-19 Easter Weekend, Next Week
ANNAPOLIS, Md (WJZ) -- As Maryland and the National Capital Region were predicted to be the next hotspot for coronavirus, Gov. Larry Hogan said the "more dangerous time" will be this weekend and next week for the region.
"This is going to be one of our most dangerous times ever this weekend and over the next week or so," Hogan said Friday. "This will be the worst possible time for people to be violating executive orders and to be congregating together."
Hogan said looking at the curve of COVID-19 cases, you can see numbers are ramping up.
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"You are taking your own life in your hands and you're threatening the lives of others," he said.
The governor is aware that many are celebrating holidays this week and want to together with their families and friends and practice their faiths, but he said it's too dangerous.
Hogan got emotional talking about how he too will miss celebrating Easter with his children and grandchildren.
"I will miss sharing Easter with my kids and grandkids; seeing them hunt for Easter eggs," he said. "I particularly will miss not eating all of their Easter candy."
He also deemed the Easter Bunny an essential worker and said Maryland children can still expect baskets from the bunny.
The governor asked Marylanders, regardless of faith, to reflect on the spirit of hope.
"Easter really is a day of hope, which is something that all of us could desperately use right now," he said. "So this weekend, I asked all Marylanders regardless of their faith to reflect on that spirit of hope and to carry it forward during these difficult days and weeks ahead."
As for when the state or nation will open up again, Hogan said it's still a guessing game.
"We had another call today with our coronavirus response team, which is made up of some really smart epidemiologists and public health doctors from some of our leading institutions here in Maryland, and they all have different models," Hogan said. "There are national models that everybody can go online and look at and then all of our individual institutions have different modeling. It is not an exact science, it's more of an art, but there are a lot of people looking at different variables."
"We believe that many of the actions that we took and that the people are helping us take are having a real impact," Hogan said.
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He believes the state's hospitalizations and death numbers maybe end being lower than early projections because of social distancing and early actions.
But we won't know the complete impact of that until it actually happens," he added. "So we know we're still heading up that curve going up a hill, but we don't know how high the climb is gonna be, how long it's gonna take to get there or when it will level off."
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Department's website or call 211. You can find all of WJZ's coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
