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April 1, 2023

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

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Recently Passed Fiscal Year 2023 Maryland Operating Budget Includes Historic Funding for Rural Communities

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On April 11, 2022, the Maryland Legislature adjourned Sine Die. Among the session’s many accomplishments, the Legislature approved the Fiscal Year 2023 State Operating Budget which included $9,000,000 in funding to support the Rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund (RMPIF) – 50% more funding than in previous years. The Rural Maryland Council would like to thank Governor Hogan for appropriating funds to support RMPIF, the Maryland House of Delegates and Maryland Senate for their support, and the numerous individuals and organizations that voiced their strong support for increased rural investment.

“We want to express our gratitude for these important and necessary funds that will be used to invigorate the economies in all of our rural areas,” said RMC Board Chair, John Hartline, “This record funding will expand the reach of our grant programs, allowing for even more positive impacts across rural Maryland and accelerating the recovery of our rural communities from the negative economic effects of COVID-19.”

The Rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund targets investment to promote economic prosperity in Maryland’s traditionally disadvantaged and underserved rural communities by sustaining efforts to promote rural regional cooperation, facilitating entrepreneurial activities and supporting key community colleges and nonprofit organizations. This fund will support the Rural Maryland Council’s activities and the Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Assistance Fund (MAERDAF) which provides capacity-building funds to rural nonprofit service providers. It will also support the state’s five rural regional councils, regional infrastructure projects, rural entrepreneurship development, rural community development, and rural health care organizations.

The RMPIF and MAERDAF grant programs have provided substantial amounts of needed opportunities and resources to our rural communities over the years. With the State’s investment, an additional $67 million in federal, local, and private funding has been directed into our rural areas. Overall, the RMPIF program between 2018 and 2021 has resulted in $124 million in economic impact and $40.9 million in employee compensation. The MAERDAF program has provided $12.1 million in additional economic impact and $4.4 million in employee compensation.

The two-phase online grant application process opens on Monday, April 25, 2022 and the Phase 1 – Letter of Intent will be due by Friday, May 20, 2022 at 11:59 pm. The Council will host four grant information sessions this Spring. These information sessions are important opportunities for participants to meet RMC staff and learn about the Council’s two grant programs. An information session will be presented by Zoom teleconference for those who cannot join in-person.

Date Location Address
Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 12:00pm to 2:00pm Zoom Teleconference Zoom Teleconference
Friday, April 22, 2022, 12:00pm to 2:00pm Tri County Council for Southern Maryland 15045 Burnt Store Road, Hughesville, MD 20637
Tuesday, April 26, 2022

12:00pm to 2:00pm

 Thomas Welcome Center, Allegany College 12401 Willowbrook Road

Cumberland, MD 21502
Thursday, April 28, 2022

12:00pm to 2:00pm

 Delmarva Community Services

The Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Intergenerational Center

 108 Chesapeake Street

Cambridge, MD 21613
Monday, May 2, 2022

2:00pm to 4:00pm

 Leading Edge Training Center 2002 Cedar Drive,

Edgewood, MD 21040

Learn more about the grant programs and register for an upcoming grant information session through the following link –  Grant Opportunities (maryland.gov).

The Rural Maryland Council (RMC) operates under the direction of a 40-member executive board in a nonpartisan and nondiscriminatory manner. It serves as the state’s federally designated rural development council and functions as the official voice for rural Maryland. The RMC advocates for rural communities and businesses across the state to flourish and to gain parity to their suburban and urban counterparts. The RMC envisions a future where residents in rural communities are achieving success in education and employment, have access to affordable, quality health care and other vital public services, and live in an environment where natural and cultural resources are being sustained for future generations.

Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission Sends State Legislative Map to General Assembly

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The Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission voted along party lines Friday to send their state legislative redistricting proposal to the General Assembly, with a new single-member district around Owings Mills in Baltimore County.

Baltimore County resident Linda Dorsey-Walker requested at a December public hearing that District 11 in Baltimore County, which is currently a multi-member district, be redrawn to include a single-member, majority Black district around Owings Mills.

“Owings Mills has 39,000 African Americans living in and around the area,” said Dorsey-Walker, who ran for the district in 2018 and finished fifth in a six-way primary. “That is almost enough for a single-member district by itself. Because of that, there is no particular reason why we should continue going on not having a minority elected.”

District 11 is currently represented by Democratic Dels. Lisa M. Belcastro, Jon S. Cardin and Dana M. Stein.

Commission Chair Karl Aro, a former head of the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services, said at a virtual meeting Friday that the commission opted to include a single-member district around Owings Mills in response to that feedback and to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

There were other “minor changes” and tweaks to the proposed legislative map based on public feedback at the December hearing, Aro said, such as keeping a small area near Aberdeen in District 34 rather than moving it to District 35.

“It is based really on the districts that have been in existence for a long time, making the necessary changes for population, Voting Rights Act concerns,” and complying with constitutional requirements, Aro said.

Other changes the map makes from the current legislative districts include:

  • Allocating just four full state Senate districts wholly within Baltimore City, while a fifth shared with Baltimore County. The city lost population over the last decade, and currently contains five full state Senate districts and a portion of another.
  • District 9A, which currently includes roughly the northwestern half of Howard County and part of southern Carroll County, would lose Carroll County and instead extend into northern Montgomery County. The county retains eight state Senate districts in addition to gaining part of District 9.
  • The city of Frederick would remain contained within District 3, which would become a strong Democratic multi-member district that would be completely encircled by the Republican-leaning multi-member District 4.
  • Anne Arundel County’s District 33, which is currently a purplish district represented by Republican Sen. Edward R. Reilly, would be chopped into three subdistricts and become more favorable to Democrats.
  • In Baltimore County, District 8, traditionally a competitive district, appears to have become more Democratic, while District 42, which leans Republican, appears to have become more conservative.

Commission members ultimately voted to send the proposal to the General Assembly, with the four Democratic lawmakers on the commission in favor of the plan and the two Republican lawmakers against it.

Senate Minority Leader Bryan W. Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel) said he felt that map was “still gerrymandered” in voting against the proposal, and House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (R-Allegany) said he opposed the map because he supports more single-member House districts statewide.

“They best reflect the concept of one-person, one-vote,” Buckel said of single-member districts.

The Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission was convened by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County). Jones and Ferguson were both members of the commission alongside House Majority Leader Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery) Senate President Pro Tem Melony G. Griffith (D-Prince George’s), Buckel and Simonaire.

Ferguson said continuity of representation was key in drawing the map, and noted that in the proposal “the overwhelming majority of Marylanders are in their existing districts.”

Lawmakers will take up the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission’s proposal when they kick off the regular legislative session next week. Also up for consideration will be the legislative proposal from the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission, a multi-partisan panel created by Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) earlier this year to draw up congressional and legislative redistricting proposals that he would then submit to the General Assembly.

The Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission’s congressional proposal did not advance out of committee during a special session in early December.

Maryland’s constitution requires the governor to submit a legislative redistricting proposal and allows the General Assembly 45 days to make their own changes. If lawmakers don’t agree on changes to the map, the governor’s proposal automatically becomes law. Constitutionally, Hogan can’t veto the General Assembly’s legislative maps.

By Bennett Leckrone

Md. Health Secretary Slammed Over Mishandled Vaccines, Lack of Universal Masking

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Senators grilled Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader Wednesday afternoon about his agency’s ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic following a recent report that hundreds of Marylanders were vaccinated with mishandled doses.

The Baltimore Sun reported last week that TrueCare24 — a state-contracted company — mismanaged vaccination records and may have compromised doses by storing them improperly.

“My concern is that this is not just a problem with TrueCare — [but] that there may be more systemic problems in place here with other vendors that are administering the vaccine as well,” said Sen. Clarence K. Lam (D-Howard) at a briefing of the Senate Vaccine Oversight Workgroup.

According to a subsequent report from the Sun, 28% of the people vaccinated by TrueCare24 are incarcerated.

“I’m very concerned about the spoiled vaccines and that they were administered primarily to exactly the communities who are in most need and have been most apprehensive and cynical about the vaccine,” said Sen. Mary L. Washington (D-Baltimore City).

According to Schrader, the Department of Health gave the company notice to address its problems, but no action was taken. The agency became aware of the inappropriate storage of vaccines and opened an investigation on Sept. 2, stopped assigning vaccine clinics to TrueCare24 on Sept. 8 and referred the matter to the agency’s audit team on Sept. 24.

The Department of Health contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance on Nov. 10 and was told to contact the 926 people who received the compromised doses. Schrader said his agency began sending emails out on Dec. 30. Those who did not submit their email address will receive letters in the mail.

Schrader said that the department plans to finish the notification process by next week.

“​​To be sure, I am not happy about how long it’s taken to obtain the clinical next steps,” he told the senators.

The matter is still under review. Schrader said he expects an audit report on his desk by the end of January.

Everyone who received a vaccine from TrueCare24 will be offered an appointment to be re-vaccinated, he said.

When pressed about his dissatisfaction with how the situation has been handled, Schrader responded that “the buck stops” with him.

Washington agreed.

“We’re having this pattern of something happening that is being, by someone, swept under the rug or not dealt with in a straightforward manner, then the press or we have to uncover it and then that wastes a lot of time and, frankly, it’s costing lives,” she said.

Lam said he’s worried that the issues seen with TrueCare24 are just the “tip of the iceberg,” and that this may be the symptom of a more systemic problem within the Hogan administration.

He also raised a red flag about the whistleblower’s demotion within the department, noting that this has happened in other instances where the agency has flubbed its response to the pandemic.

“Whether it’s the clunky South Korean [COVID] tests, the PPE that were ordered from politically connected companies with no prior history to deliver or the firing of health officers trying to protect their counties, or even the demotion of an internal whistleblower — your decisions as the secretary seem to follow a pattern of behavior that consistently deflects blame oR fires the messenger,” Lam said.

Schrader told Lam that his information was “partially correct but there’s a lot more to the story” and offered to discuss it with the senator offline.

A frequent critic of the Health secretary, Lam, a public health physician, also went after him for his stance against a universal masking mandate, noting that he was quoted in a Washington Post report as saying it was “not on the table.”

“My question to you, Mr. Secretary, is how many more Marylanders must become hospitalized or die before we’ll reinstate a full mask mandate here in the state?” Lam asked.

On Wednesday, 3,118 Marylanders were being hospitalized for COVID-19 — the highest number the state has seen since the pandemic began. Nearly 50 people died between Tuesday and Wednesday.

State health officials have projected that Maryland could reach up to 5,000 hospitalizations in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) proclaimed a 30-day state of emergency, noting that the next four to six weeks are projected to be “the most challenging time of the entire pandemic.”

Hogan issued a masking mandate for all state-run facilities on Monday but declined to issue a universal mandate.

Schrader responded that the Department of Health is looking to impose a cultural shift, which he believes is better achieved with persuasion than force.

“Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, I think you know we’re in the middle of a pandemic, our hospitals are being flooded out right now and I don’t think we have the time to wait on changing culture,” Lam replied.

By Hannah Gaskill

Hogan Issues State of Emergency, Calls on Feds For More Decisive Action on Vaccines, Treatments

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Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) proclaimed a 30-day state of emergency Tuesday morning, stating that Maryland will see the pandemic reach its worst points in January through early February.

“…[T]he truth is that the next four to six weeks will be the most challenging time of the entire pandemic,” Hogan said.

The Maryland Department of Health reported an additional 311 hospitalizations Tuesday morning, pushing the state to a new peak of 3,057 in total. Hogan said that state health officials project that “could reach more than 5,000” — more than 250% higher than the state’s previous peak of 1,952 hospitalized COVID patients.

Tuesday also saw nearly 14,500 confirmed cases and 48 deaths. The state’s positivity rate rests at 27.44%.

“Right now we’re experiencing the winter surge that we anticipated, together with the convergence of the delta variant, the flu season and the omicron variant which has spread like wildfire throughout the country and around the world,” Hogan said.

Under the proclamation Hogan has the ability to “take urgent, short-term actions to combat the current crisis,” he said.

Hogan also issued two executive orders Tuesday.

The first order gives Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader the authority to direct and expedite the transfer of patients between hospitals and create alternate care facilities, allows for interstate reciprocity to let health care workers licensed in nearby states to practice in Maryland, lets inactive practitioners provide care services without renewing their licenses and gives graduate nurses the greenlight to provide care in hospitals and other health care settings.

Hogan’s second order expands the state’s emergency medical workers by giving the executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and the chairperson of the State Emergency Medical Services Board the authority to suspend portions of state code to allow more people to practice on the frontlines.

Additionally, the governor announced that he has deployed 1,000 members of the Maryland National Guard to aid local health officials in testing and transporting patients.

Access to testing has been front of mind for many Marylanders who have waited hours in lines after the holiday. The demand for testing portends increased case rates, and potentially hospitalizations.

According to Dr. Theodore Delbridge, the executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, Tuesday’s hospitalization rate represents a 100% increase in the number of hospitalizations from Dec. 22 — only two weeks ago. He also noted that nine hospitals have begun operating under crisis standards of care, with three more on the verge of doing so.

“As of yesterday afternoon, more than 600 patients — people — were waiting in emergency departments for their turn to be admitted to a hospital bed,” Delbridge said.

He added that nearly every Maryland emergency department is requesting that EMS teams reroute patients to other hospitals to try to mitigate patient overflow.

“Of course, that’s not possible when every nearby emergency department is also requesting no new patients,” said Delbridge.

Hogan continued to push for vaccinations, adding that booster shots are now available to Maryland children aged 12 through 15 five months after they received their second dose.

The governor said that “nearly 75%” of people who tested positive and “nearly 84%” of those who died from COVID-related complications in 2021 were not fully vaccinated.

“The vaccines are safe and effective, and they’re keeping people out of the hospital and saving lives,” Hogan said.

While Hogan declared a state of emergency, he did not mandate statewide masking.

Hogan said that masking mandates can result in “the opposite effect.”

“I’m not sure the people that are refusing to wear masks are going to wear one anyway. We don’t have the ability to enforce it, so we’re just strongly encouraging people to wear the damn mask, but we don’t need a mandate to … force businesses to do that we’re encouraging them to do so,” he said.

Rather, the governor, who was scheduled to attend a call with the White House shortly after the news conference, said that he would be pushing the federal government to shorten the length of time between second doses of vaccines and boosters, increase the availability of monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic clinical treatment and to expedite the approval and distribution of at-home rapid tests and the newly FDA-approved Pfizer antiviral pills.

“All of the emergency actions that we’re taking today are to keep our hospitals from overflowing to keep our kids in school and to keep Maryland open for business and we will continue to take whatever actions are necessary in the very difficult days and weeks ahead,” Hogan said. “But we also need the federal government to take decisive action.”

By Hannah Gaskill

As COVID Booms, Hogan Announces New Safety Measures, Schools Chief Defends Planned Return to Class

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As the state’s COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates continue to skyrocket, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) implemented new orders aimed at state employees Monday, with plans to announce further emergency measures later this week.

“Today we are taking another series of actions to address the current surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations, and we will continue to take every action necessary to help our hospitals and keep people safe,” Hogan said in a statement Monday morning.

Hogan announced Monday morning that the state will provide two hours of paid leave to incentivize government employees to get their COVID-19 booster shots. This policy will be applied retroactively to employees who have proof they’ve been boosted.

State agencies will also be allowed to implement hybrid in-person and telework policies. “Front-facing agency services” have been instructed to operate as usual, according to Monday’s news release.

Additionally, all state employees and visitors are now required to be masked while in buildings owned or leased by the state.

The state’s largest employee union — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — which reached a new contract with the Hogan administration on New Year’s Eve, said officials had earlier rejected policies on universal masking and screening during the collective bargaining process.

On Monday, the state reported 14,251 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours — and 26 additional deaths.

Almost 90,000 new COVID test results were reported Monday, after hours-long lines snaked around testing sites across the state over the weekend. Maryland’s current seven-day average positivity rate for reported COVID tests is 26.87%.

According to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard, which had been knocked offline following a cyberattack waged against the agency last month, 2,746 hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients — nearly doubling the state’s previous peak seen in January 2021.

Several hospitals in the state have shifted to “crisis standards of care,” which give legal and ethical guidelines to health care providers when they have too many patients and not enough resources to care for them all, The Associated Press reported.

The House Health and Government Operations Committee and the Senate Education, Environment and Health Affairs Committee will hold a joint hearing on Jan. 13 to question department officials about the nature of the cyberattack.

Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader was slated to provide an update to lawmakers on the state response to the surge in cases during a briefing of the Senate Vaccine Oversight Workgroup on Monday afternoon but requested that the meeting be postponed to Wednesday, citing “weather-related response activities.”

After a spokesperson for Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) alerted the press that the Senate meeting was canceled, the governor’s office announced that Hogan will hold a briefing to discuss COVID-19 emergency actions Tuesday morning.

Last week, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore City) issued a statement criticizing what she characterized as Hogan’s inaction in response to the pandemic’s surge following a Baltimore Sun report that a state-contracted company mishandled vaccine doses.

“Our overwhelmed hospitals have called on the state to declare a public health emergency. These calls have gone unanswered by the Department of Health,” Jones tweeted. “Now, we are learning they’ve mishandled the vaccination of over a thousand Marylanders and refused to notify them in a timely manner. Governor Hogan needs to treat this like the public health crisis it has once again become.”

Schools chief defends planned return

As students prepare to return to school after winter break, some school districts are reinforcing their commitment to in-person learning while some teachers and parents have been demanding a return to virtual learning in the midst of the rapidly spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus.

In a press conference on Monday, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises emphasized the importance of keeping schools open, especially for the most vulnerable students for whom school is one of their only safe havens.

“The decision to return to in-person learning is grounded in one to two plus years of experience and consultation with medical professionals,” Santelises said.

The decision aligns with U.S. Department of Education guidance and State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury, who has repeatedly spoken in favor of keeping schools open. Montgomery County Public Schools, the state’s largest school system, also intends to return to classrooms after the holidays, though that has also been delayed by winter weather. In mid-December, Prince George’s County Public Schools made the decision to shift to virtual learning until after the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Santelises on Monday announced additional safety measures, including to require all staff — vaccinated and unvaccinated — to participate in weekly tests for COVID-19 through the month of January. All high school students will be offered testing on Wednesday, one day before they return to school. And the school district will also offer more ways for families to submit COVID-19 testing consent forms, such as through email or other online portals, Santelises continued.

Elected state officials, including the senate president, showed their support for the decision on Monday, joining Santelises at the press conference.

“We have multiple layers of detection, prevention and treatment that exist to make our schools some of the safest places in our city — no other sectors in our society right now are shutting down,” Ferguson said.

By Hannah Gaskill, Bruce DePuyt, and Elizabeth Shwe

Regulators Ease Shutdown Order on Troubled Md. Poultry Rendering Plant

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Maryland regulators have let a problem-plagued Eastern Shore poultry rendering plant resume operations two days after ordering it shut down because of pollution violations and potential wastewater releases.

Valley Proteins Inc. reached an agreement on Dec. 23 with the Maryland Department of the Environment that allowed it to restart its Linkwood plant but extends for now a ban on discharging any of its wastewater into a tributary of the Transquaking River.

Instead, the interim consent order signed by the MDE and the Winchester, VA-based company requires it to continue pumping wastewater from on-site lagoons and hauling it elsewhere to be treated. It also mandates lowering levels in the impoundments over the next 20 days to reduce the risks of leaks or overflows.

Under the order, Valley Proteins can only resume discharging wastewater to the Transquaking, a Chesapeake Bay tributary, after it has reduced lagoon levels sufficiently and can comply with pollution limits in its permit. It must notify the MDE two hours before resuming discharges and upon any other changes in its treatment operations.

Neighbors and environmental groups have complained for years about the Valley Proteins plant, which takes up to 4 million pounds of chicken entrails and feathers daily from poultry processing plants and renders them into pet food.

The rendering plant is the river’s largest single source of nutrient pollution, which fuels algae blooms and reduces oxygen levels in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries below what’s healthy for fish and other aquatic animals.

Mike Smith, the company’s vice chairman, said that partial rendering operations resumed the night of Dec. 23 and that work is under way to repair and restart the wastewater treatment system at the plant.

“Once the system kicks in and treats our water properly, we will discharge again,” he said by email, adding that the company would then also “begin to run again at full production.”

The MDE had ordered Valley Proteins to suspend operations at the Linkwood facility two days earlier, on Dec. 21, after a series of inspections from Dec. 10 through Dec. 20 found multiple violations, including an illegal discharge into a holding pond, discharges of sludge and inadequately treated wastewater into a stream leading to the Transquaking and leaks and overflows from treatment tanks.

Regulators had directed the company earlier to stop discharging wastewater until its treatment system could meet pollution limits in its permit. The Dec. 21 order to suspend operations was prompted by the MDE inspector finding the company’s wastewater lagoons were nearly full.

The MDE’s inspections were triggered by drone images provided to the agency on Dec. 10 by ShoreRivers, a coalition of Eastern Shore riverkeeper organizations, which showed a discolored discharge from the rendering plant’s wastewater outfall.

Earlier this year, ShoreRivers, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth notified Valley Proteins they intended to sue over pollution violations at the Linkwood plant, including repeatedly exceeding discharge limits on fecal coliform bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia.

The plant has been operating on an outdated discharge permit since 2006, and in September the MDE proposed new limits that would require upgrading the company’s wastewater treatment system. The state had at one time offered to provide nearly $13 million in public funds to pay for that upgrade, but lawmakers cut the amount in half. The MDE subsequently withdrew the offer and vowed to take enforcement action after finding more pollution violations there. That new permit is still pending.

In the Dec. 23 interim consent order, the MDE directs the company to hire an outside engineer and submit a plan within 100 days for improving the Linkwood facility’s wastewater treatment system. The company agreed to pay fines of $250 per day per violation if it fails to comply with any of the order’s terms.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Report: Analysts Say New Map May Not be Enough to Flip First District as Three Democrats Seek Nomination Against Harris

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From The Washington Post comes this analysis of the First District congressional race following the approval of new congressional districts for the state:

“Flipping the 1st District to blue in 2022 became an urgent priority of Maryland Democrats,” Meagan Flynn writes in the Post.

Democratic leaders were outraged by Harris objecting to certifying the 2020 presidential election results following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as well as his vote against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the police agencies that responded to that attack.

Two Democratic challengers, Heather Mizeur and Dave Harden, cited his “actions in the aftermath of the insurrection” as factors in their decisions to run. Jennifer Pingley, the third Democrat in the race, is seeking the Democratic nomination for the second time.

The Maryland General Assembly recently approved “a new congressional map that will put the conservative Eastern Shore-anchored 1st District in play for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections,” Flynn writes. However, she notes that Harris is still considered the favorite according to many political analysts.

The new congressional map already faces two legal challenges, but the U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to interfere with partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts.

At Public Hearing, Marylanders Request Changes to Commission’s Proposed Legislative Boundaries

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The Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission released its proposed state legislative map Monday evening — and by Wednesday afternoon, members of the public weighed in on how the proposal would affect their home districts.

Much of the testimony at Wednesday’s public hearing revolved around granular details of individual districts. Del. Christian J. Miele (R-Baltimore County) urged commission members to retain a small area near Aberdeen in District 34 rather than moving it to District 35; Baltimore County resident Linda Dorsey-Walker said commission members should draw a single-member delegate district around Owings Mills in District 11; Kevin Burke of Anne Arundel County criticized the way Severna Park is drawn in the proposed map and said the community is “carved up like a Christmas turkey.”

Reginald Benbow, a Baltimore resident who has launched a House campaign in District 43, said he was concerned that adding Towson in Baltimore County to the existing district, which currently includes parts of north-central Baltimore City, would dilute the voice of historically redlined and marginalized communities. He noted that the city lost population over the past decade, but said most of that population loss was in the eastern and western areas of the city.

“You just have the potential of a more affluent community in Towson mixed in with some of the affluent communities already from the 43rd district that could overwhelm the interest of some of the neighborhoods that have historically been marginalized,” Benbow said.

The commission released its legislative map Monday evening, and the deadline to sign up to testify at the public hearing was 10 a.m. Wednesday. Beth Hufnagel of the League of Women Voters said the amount of time the public had to analyze the map before the hearing was “woefully inadequate.”

Legislative redistricting in Maryland is subject to a slightly different set of rules compared to congressional redistricting, which was just handled in a special legislative session and is now subject of a legal challenge.

In writing legislative districts, the Maryland Constitution expressly requires respect for political and geographic boundaries, requires that delegate districts must be nested in senatorial districts, and allows for the use of both single- and multi-member delegate districts.

Additionally, lawmakers have more leeway over differences in population between legislative districts, compared to stringent margins required in congressional districting. Lawmakers are allowed to create population variances of plus or minus 5% in legislative districts — although Karl Aro, the chair of the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission and a former head of the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services, said the new legislative maps keep that figure to plus or minus 4%.

Aro said this map keeps population variances smaller than previous legislative maps that he worked on while he worked for the Department of Legislative Services.

“In my previous four rounds of redistricting, this is the smallest maximum deviation that we’ve ever achieved,” Aro said.

Del. Jason C. Buckel (R-Allegany), the House minority leader and a member of the Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission, questioned whether the new proposed District 4 would pass muster for compactness. The proposed District 4 would encompass much of Frederick County around the city of Frederick, which is contained within District 3, creating what Buckel described as a “donut effect.”

Aro said he didn’t think the proposed District 4 “is a compactness issue at all.”

By Bennett Leckrone

Md. Department of Education Encourages In-Person Learning as COVID Rates Climb; One School System Has Gone Virtual

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In response to coronavirus case surges and fears of the omicron variant across the state, one Maryland public school veered back to virtual learning while the state is urging schools to stay open for in-person instruction.

In a statement, the Maryland State Department of Education wrote that the agency will support local school systems to keep “each and every public school open.”

The state department will support a transition to virtual learning “only on a case-by-case basis under the most exigent of circumstances and in close consultation with State and local health departments,” the statement read. Local school systems that do transition to virtual learning “will need to immediately and aggressively work to bring students back to in-person normal attendance and learning,” the statement continued.

The announcement came Monday after Prince George’s County Public Schools quickly moved students to virtual learning this week, citing COVID-19 related concerns. Students will return to in-person classes on Jan. 18, around two weeks after winter break ends, according to a statement by Monica Goldson, the chief executive officer of Prince George’s County Public Schools. And students who have been enrolled in a virtual program throughout the fall will remain remote until Jan. 31.

“The increased positivity rates have significantly challenged the ability to [maintain in-person classes], causing anxiety among many school communities and disruption to the school day,” Goldson wrote in a letter to parents, students and staff.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, before he tested positive for COVID-19 the following morning, Hogan called the shift “a terrible mistake, and something we’re very opposed to.”

“[O]ur duly elected school boards in these counties have the powers to make those decisions,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that power as governor. But we’re going to make it very clear that we think it’s a mistake.”

Hogan said the county should have “ramp[ed] up testing” rather than “shutting down an entire school system of kids that have already struggled with distance-learning for nearly a year.”

When the state’s COVID-19 dashboard was partially restored Monday after more than two weeks of outages related to a cyberattack, county-specific COVID transmission data was not available; Prince George’s County has seen some of the highest local transmission rates in the state at points in the pandemic.

Other local systems have tried to restrict student activities and others underscored their commitment to keep students in classrooms with as little disruption as possible.

On Monday, Baltimore County school officials promised in a statement that they would keep all schools open for in-person learning unless local or state government officials mandate them to close schools. “As a result of our comprehensive COVID-19 health and safety practices, we can and will maintain in-person learning five days a week for all students,” Superintendent Darryl L. Williams wrote in the statement.

While acknowledging that there is a substantial increase in coronavirus cases in the state, Montgomery County also pledged on Monday to keep schools fully in-person.

One school district tried to restrict school activities, but failed.

Howard County Superintendent Michael Martirano announced last week that all sports and extracurricular activities would be canceled through mid-January due to an “alarming rate” of positive COVID-19 cases, but the county school board quickly overruled his decision and reinstated all activities with a plan to require mandatory testing for students participating in sports and theater.

At the start of the school year, the Maryland State Board of Education voted to require all teachers, students, staff and visitors to wear masks inside public school buildings. This emergency regulation expires on Feb. 25, 2022, and the State Board of Education recently approved a plan that would lift the mandate if local vaccination rates are high or COVID-19 transmission rates are moderate or low.

To keep students in classrooms as much as possible, the Maryland State Department of Education encouraged a “test-to-stay” approach, which allows students who may have been exposed to COVID-19 in school to still attend classes in-person rather than quarantine as long as they test negative for COVID-19 and show no symptoms.

In previous board meetings, state Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury has consistently advocated for schools to stay open for in-person instruction with proper COVID-19 safety measures, contending that in-person instruction is the best way for students — especially historically underserved students — to learn.

“We have seen the devastating impact of school closures and long-term virtual instruction on student learning here in Maryland and across the country. When COVID-19 transmission increases and health measures become a necessity, schools must be the last places to close. With unprecedented federal and State resources and tools, we can keep schools safely open for in person, full-time learning,” Choudhury said in a statement.

By Elizabeth Shwe

COVID-19 Dashboard is Mostly Back Online; Maryland Cases at “Red Alert” Levels

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After being offline for more than two weeks due to a cyberattack, portions of the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard returned to operation on Monday, and a top official said the agency has developed “workarounds” for most of the functions that were affected by the outage.

The updated numbers reflect a significant spike in cases and test positivity — a surge that a physician who serves in the state legislature said pointed to a dangerous time for the state’s hospitals in the weeks to come.

The department brought its systems back online just hours after Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) announced that he tested positive for coronavirus.

The Dec. 4 attack left the agency unable to update some portions of the online portal it established in the early days of the pandemic. The department was able to report hospitalizations and vaccinations throughout the crisis, but not other data.

The lack of case count numbers and positivity rates left local health officials in the dark as to the full impact of the omicron variant and holiday travel. They knew from other metrics — hospitalizations, mostly — that the situation appears to be growing worse by the day.

From Dec. 1 through Dec. 20, Maryland reported 24,905 new cases, an average of 1,779 per day, though data for six dates are missing.

Over a comparable period in early November — before Thanksgiving get-togethers and holiday shopping — Maryland saw an average of just under 700 new cases per day.

The state’s rolling 7-day test positivity rate is now 10.27%, a dramatic increase from the 4.36% the state reported the day after Thanksgiving. For most of October and November, the state’s positivity rate was between 3% and 4%.

“Unless we take action soon, our hospitals are going to be very quickly overwhelmed,” said Sen. Clarence K. Lam (D-Howard), a physician in the preventive medicine program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We are seeing rising rates even among those that are vaccinated — and this could tax an already-strained health care workforce that is barely holding it together right now.”

“This should be red-alert across the entire state,” he added.

The state is still unable to report updates on the number of people who have died due to COVID-19. Maryland’s official count has been frozen at 11,022 since Dec. 4.

Hogan has said little about the attack, though he has made cybersecurity a top issue as he broadens his profile beyond Maryland.

During a briefing for reporters, Chip Stewart, Maryland’s chief information security officer, refused to disclose details about the intrusion into the MDH computer network, citing the ongoing “criminal” probe being conducted by state and federal investigators. He would not say whether it was launched from overseas or whether a ransom payment has been requested.

“There is no evidence, at this time, that the incident resulted in unauthorized access to — or acquisition of — any data,” he said.

W. Lance Schine, deputy secretary of the Department of Information Technology, said health department employees were given “loaner computers” shortly after the attack.

“We are making good progress on bringing systems back online as safely and quickly as possible,” he added.

As the absence of updated COVID metrics stretched into its second week, state lawmakers voiced frustration with the governor’s low profile. Maryland Matters reported last week that key committee chairs were debating whether to hold a public hearing with top state health officials in December or wait until the General Assembly reconvenes in January.

The briefing and the restoration of data came just hours after Hogan announced on Twitter that he had tested positive.

“COVID numbers, we felt, were important for the public and we worked hard to bring up the numbers that we could,” said Schine. “Today was the soonest we felt those numbers were accurate enough to share with the public.”

Hogan, a cancer survivor, was been vaccinated twice and recently received a booster.

His spokesman, Michael Ricci, said Hogan is “feeling fine.” He is working at Government House, the governor’s residence, and holding meetings online.

Members of his executive protection detail have tested negative, Ricci said, as have family and other staff. “He’ll quarantine in line with recommendations from health officials.”

Hogan, who is tested regularly, tested negative on Thursday, Ricci said.

In an interview, Lam urged the governor to reinstate a mask mandate to slow the spread of the virus during the holidays and to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. But he expressed doubt that Hogan would go down that road.

“There are breakthrough cases all over the place,” Lam said. “We’re seeing rates that we haven’t seen since December of last year, and that was before the vaccine.”

Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Montgomery) praised Hogan for being candid about his positive test result — and stressed that even people who’ve been vaccinated can become infected. “We know that breakthrough cases happen.”

Reznik had sent a letter last week to Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader seeking an update about the attack and indicating that health care providers had not been paid in connection to the breach.

Reznik said Monday that the updated metrics “confirm everything that we have feared — which is that things are moving in the wrong direction and quickly.”

Stewart said systems relating to Medicaid operations — including eligibility verification and provide payments — are back online, as are systems for issuing birth and death certificates.

By Bruce DePuyt