Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
MARYLAND (WMAL) – Maryland’s governor and first lady picked up a potentially life-saving delivery over the weekend: 500,000 coronavirus tests.
Gov. Hogan said Saturday he and first lady Yumi met a Korean Air plane carrying the test kits – from a South Korean Company called Lab Genomics – at BWI Airport. The delivery came after weeks of collaboration between Maryland and South Korea as part of a confidential project called Operation Enduring Friendship.
“This weekend we took an exponential, game changing step forward on our large-scale testing initiative,” Hogan said during a press conference Monday.
States have been scrambling to get more tests as the pandemic continues. On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday Hogan said the number one problem in America today is the lack of testing. Hogan said Monday expanded testing is the most critical part to the state’s Roadmap to Recovery plan. The Trump administration’s Opening America plan says before a state can start a phased comeback, it must have a decline in new positive cases over a 14-day period.
The 500,000 tests is more than four of the top five states in the U.S. have done so far since COVID-19 cases started to be seen in the U.S. according to Hogan.
“I don’t know if it’s gonna demolish the curve, but it certainly is gonna enable us to open in a much safer way and enable us to protect a lot of folks,” Hogan said.
The tests cost $9 million dollars, which Hogan believes is a wise investment. He credits his South Korean wife Yumi with helping forge what he called an unprecedented international partnership.
Work will start right away, but Hogan said the long-term testing plan would take a while to ramp up.
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