District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia Reopening Plans

The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia have established criteria for reopening the local and state economies in the region. These criteria track with the federal government's gating criteria and three-phase reopening plan. While there have been some promising changes in statistics for new cases, new hospitalizations, and deaths in the region, the criteria are not nearly being reached, as reported in The Washington Post. Accordingly, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, MD Governor Larry Hogan, and VA Governor Ralph Northam made a joint request in a letter to the Office of Personnel Management to urge the Office to "continue to implement broader telework policies for the federal workforce, while we continue to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic." The region has more than 360,000 federal employees.

The current goal, regionally, is to begin reopening economy at some point in May. However, DC, Maryland, and Virginia all indicate that they will require the following before reopening:

Expanded testing and contact tracing
More hospital beds and supplies to absorb surges of seriously ill patients
Many more masks and other protective gear

Here is how the region is doing relative to meeting its goal of reopening in May:

	DC	MD	VA
Total cases	3,994 (as of 4/27/2020)	20,113 (as of 4/27/2020)	14,339 (as of 4/27/2020)
Total deaths	190 (as of 4/27/2020)	929 (as of 4/27/2020)	492 (as of 4/27/2020)
Hospitalizations	402* (as of 4/20/2020, according to officials) DC does not report daily hospital admissions.	1,528 (as of 4/27/2020)	2,165 (as of 4/27/2020)
New hospital beds	70%-75% full; working to add 1,000-1,500 beds by 5/15/2020	Working on 6,000	Can handle expected new hospitalizations with existing beds for 2 months
ICU admissions (ventilator use)	Information not available	Average daily ICU admissions: 9.7 for period ending 4/22/2020	22% ventilator use for COVID-19; state does not share ICU admissions data
PPE	Received a fraction of request to FEMA. To get through August, DC needs: 600,000 N95 masks 5.6 million surgical masks 1.4 million gowns 350,000 face shields 40 million gloves	Received a fraction of request to FEMA. Launched a multiagency task force to increase state’s supply. Recently received 1 million more face shields Expecting 4.5 million N95 masks	Received a fraction of request to FEMA. Not enough in any PPE category. Ordered 500,000 masks; subsequently outbid by Trump administration; Virginia did not receive the masks they ordered Test results from state labs usually in 24 hours; private lab results in up to 9 days
Testing	18,068 tests conducted (as of 4/27/2020) Free walk-in and drive-through testing sites at University of DC Community College Bertie Backus campus; free testing at several sites for those with symptoms or with a doctor’s referral Deploying rapid testing equipment in facilities that serve the most vulnerable	73,635 tests conducted; infection rate: 19% Aiming to conduct 20,000 tests per day Bought 500,000 tests from South Korea; order received	82,753 tests conducted (as of 4/27/2020) Currently conducting 2,000-3,000 tests per day VA is working with insurers to waive costs for COVID-19 testing
Contact tracing	Established a Coronavirus Contact Tracing Force 65 contact tracers; expanding to 200 in Phase 1	250 people currently doing this work Signed contract with National Opinion Research Center to hire 750 more contact tracing workers, roughly meeting goal	Information not available

Information reported by The Washington Post and the individual jurisdictions. Additional details are available at the District of Columbia, State of Maryland, and State of Virginia websites dedicated to the public health crisis. Data changes daily as the situation evolves.

For questions or comments, contact:

Claude E. Bailey
Partner
Tel: 202.344.8057
cebailey@Venable.com

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