Today on Midday, updates on efforts to mitigate COVID-19, the outlook for testing, and redoubled efforts of outreach to the African American community here in Baltimore. Later this hour, Tom is joined by Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department. Their conversation is posted separately, here.
Tom's first guest is Dr. Lisa Maragakis, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist with Johns Hopkins Medicine, who serves on Governor Hogan’s Maryland Coronavirus Response Team. She’s also the Executive Director of the Hopkins Biocontainment Unit and the Incidents Commander for COVID-19 response at John Hopkins.
This morning, Maryland officials announced 854 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to at least 13,684 patients afflicted with COVID-19. At least 582 Marylanders have perished so far in the pandemic.
There are hopeful signs that the rates of new infections and hospitalizations are leveling off in some of the nation’s worst-affected locations like New York City, Chicago and New Orleans. But hot spots continue to develop around the country, especially in nursing homes. Last week, a Future Care facility in Northwest Baltimore reported 170 cases. That’s in the 21215-zip code, which has the highest concentration of cases in the state.
Nationally, the US has more than 750,000 cases, equal to the number of known infections in Spain, Italy, France and Germany combined. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 37,000 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States. The first US fatality was reported on February 29.
There’s an article published on the Johns Hopkins Medicine website that Dr. Maragakis reviewed, entitled, I've Been Diagnosed With the New Coronavirus (COVID-19). What Should I Expect? It's been viewed more than 1.2 million times, and you should give it a read, too. Here's the link.
Dr. Maragakis joins Tom on the line from her office at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
