Western MD Schools Reopening In-Person
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Anonymous
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Frostburg State just reopened in-person classes so they are highly motivated to not be the source of all these new COVID cases in Allegheny County. Confusion!
https://thebottomlinenews.com/allegany-county-elevated-to-covid-19-red-zone-according-to-governor-hogan/
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Anonymous
Geez, I just checked Allegheny County's rates again and they are now up to 46.7 new cases per 100,000 per day. Garrett County is down to 10 but what the heck is going on in Allegheny? |
Anonymous
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https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-allegany-county-schools-coronavirus-20201109-ng73lulqpbgobirpdr4zcw56ua-story.html
Allegheny returning to online.
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Anonymous
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Garret County is now at 33 new cases per 100,000 per day.
Allegheny is at a whopping 87 new cases per 100,000 per day. Washington County is at 34 Prince George's is at 25 Overall state of MD is at 24. Western MD counties have the highest rate of COVID in the state except for Baltimore City which is also around 34. 
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Anonymous
Garret county almost doubled to 61. Allegheny is up to 112. Washington County up to 40. Maryland overall is 28. These western counties are increasing at a much higher rate than the rest of MD. Are their schools still open? Are they wearing masks? |
Anonymous
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Every single time a country or region around the world has reopened their schools, cases have skyrocketed. And yet trolls on the DCUM school fora still want to open schools. |
Anonymous
Unfortunately, the Western Maryland Counties are not mask compliant and much of the population is not concerned about the virus. Alleghehy County, where things are worst, only started bringing young kids back at the beginning of October, grade by grade, so the huge spike cannot be attributed to the school population. Frostburg, maybe, but not the public schools. Interestingly, just about every county in Maryland has seen their numbers surge beginning shortly after the end of September. Given that most of the large districts did not return their students to the classrooms, reopening schools cannot be the driver. If only it were possible to identify other factors that align with the surge, like. . . . loosening of restrictions, expanded indoor dining, etc. Al of these things happened at the state level, and things went downhill from here. If nothing else, I hope we will learn for the next time that reopening needs to happen in stages, with time in between each stage to determine what the impact will be. |
Anonymous
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Well cases are up everywhere but they aren't exploding at the rate they are in Garrett and Allegheny county. Washington County cases are rising at a less alarming speed.
In just a couple days Garrett: went from 61 to 77 Allegheny: went from 112 to 130 Washington: went from 40 to 44 
I don't know that schools being open is fueling the spread, but it probably isn't helping. |
Anonymous
I would agree. It's hard to know definitively because lots of people don't provide contact tracing information. That said, I think if most people in the city are mask compliant and practices social distancing, keep the bars closed, etc.. it would be fine to open schools. But too many places don't have that combination. I agree we should close down bars and gyms and open the schools in hybrid mode. |
Anonymous
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The unfolding crisis in Western Maryland shows why you need leadership at the state level and should not just leave it to locals to manage the pandemic.
The hospitals in Western Maryland are filling up and patients are having to be transferred elsewhere. Until recently, there were no state run testing sites. No one should be looking at rising numbers and saying that we are doing great, even if the numbers are still low. Allegheny County went from 2.1 cases per 100,000 on September 2 to 6.3 cases per 100,000 on October 3. Numbers are great, still under 10, even though they tripled. Let's dine indoors, go to movies. By October 20 there are 12 cases per 100,000. One month later, they are looking at more than 130 cases per 100,000! What is also interesting is that the positivity rate in the county has increased almost every day since the end of September (I'm using COVIDactnow numbers). 1.1% positivity at the end of September. 3.2% by October 14. 5.1% on October 28. This week it is over 10%. This idea that you should look at positivity as the primary indicator, and Maryland officials seem to have done, and that everything is ok as long as you are under 5% has proven to be an ineffective public health strategy. |
Anonymous
Thank you for this really great explanation. I think areas might not be in an immediate crisis with positivity rates under 5% but that doesn't mean that they don't need to take action. With this virus, the easiest time to take action is before there is a hospital crisis. Are you correct though that hospitals in Western MD are filling up? I thought they had plenty of space still. And if not, it should be easy to send extra patients elsewhere -- there are parts or MD or nearby WV that don't have lots of cases right? |
Anonymous
I don't personally have the information on hospitalizations, but I went back to figure out where I read that information. Apparently the Governor is quoted as saying the hospitals are filling up in an article from today's Baltimore Sun. I pasted it below. Allegany County watched from afar as coronavirus hit ‘downstate’ Maryland. Now, it’s running rampant there. By JEAN MARBELLA BALTIMORE SUN | NOV 20, 2020 AT 5:00 AM Coronavirus numbers have spiked in recent weeks in Allegany County. The local hospital had long since taken down the coronavirus triage tent it erected during the pandemic’s first wave. County schools were reopening, grade by grade, and had made it to the fifth graders. The public university began the academic year with some in-person classes, and people still could go to some local government meetings. But in the space of several weeks, Allegany County went from relatively low levels of COVID-19 cases to having Maryland’s highest rate of infection now. In Maryland’s lightly populated western panhandle, closer to Pittsburgh than to Baltimore, Allegany had a seven-day average case rate Thursday of more than 130 per 100,000 people, far above the statewide average of close to 32 cases per 100,000, state data showed. The rise was swift, with the county going from fewer than 750 cumulative cases Oct. 28 to more than 1,900, shaking many out of a comfort zone that developed earlier in the pandemic, when relatively few had contracted the illness. “I think what happened is we got lulled into a false sense of security,” Cumberland Mayor Raymond M. Morriss said. “People became a little complacent and started to socialize more.” Why Allegany, with a population of about 70,000, has been hit so hard by the virus is unclear, although it comes at a time when COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across much of the country. Midwestern and Plains states that previously escaped large numbers of cases are engulfed by waves of them. Other states, including Maryland, that had seen cases peak earlier in the pandemic are facing a resurgence. While largely rural and remote — one in four acres of the county is public land, making it a favorite of hikers, bicyclists and kayakers — Allegany has its share of places where people live in the kind of close quarters where the virus spreads easily. It is home to Frostburg State University, state and federal prisons, and several nursing homes, where many of the county’s earlier cases emerged. Allegany’s neighbors, Garrett and Washington counties, also have seen increases, although not as dramatically, with 77 and 44 COVID cases per 100,000 population, respectively. Some point to pockets of resistance to mask-wearing and social distancing as perhaps contributing to the spread in Western Maryland. Calling rural areas, “particularly Allegany and Garrett” counties, “our absolute worst” for rising infection rates, Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday that perhaps some residents in those areas “weren’t being as careful” and “maybe not wearing masks and not following advice.” “And now they’re calling us, begging us for help,” the Republican governor said at a Tuesday news conference at which he announced new statewide restrictions. “We’re trying to move patients out of their overflowing hospitals.” Some in Allegany acknowledge that, like anywhere, there are those loath to wear masks or avoid gathering. Others say the behavior of residents alone isn’t to blame for COVID’s spread. They point to how their region can be ignored by officials “downstate,” a catchall term for the more populated central part of Maryland, and how it was among the few locales that didn’t have a state testing site until recently. What is clear is that the virus has taken root in the community and spread within families, co-workers and circles of friends. “We’ve been very careful," said the Rev. Martha Macgill, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland. “You don’t want your church to have a spreader event.” Earlier this month, her friend and fellow priest, the Rev. Dr. Marsha Bell, fell ill with COVID, Macgill said. Bell is now recovering at home. But the priests and their husbands had formed a social “pod” over the course of the pandemic, and the other three tested positive, as well. Macgill said her case was mild, but the church is now closed to in-person visits for the rest of the month. As “an essential spiritual worker,” she is offering sermons and prayers online. None of the roughly 30 people who attended Nov. 1 services at which Bell officiated, spread out in a space that can hold about 300, are believed to have been infected, she said. Nor, she said, were those who attended a church event later that day with Bell for Maryland Emancipation Day, which commemorates the date when the state’s new constitution abolished slavery. The Rev. Martha Macgill, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, has recently recovered from COVID-19 after all four members of her "bubble" tested positive. The Rev. Martha Macgill, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, has recently recovered from COVID-19 after all four members of her "bubble" tested positive. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun) Much of the county, having lifted some restrictions, is retrenching. UPMC Western Maryland in Cumberland, a hospital in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center system, brought back its triage tent. Government buildings retightened restrictions on meetings and other visits. And schools that had some in-person instruction have gone all-virtual. Allegany schools began the academic year online, then began Sept. 21 to gradually return kids to classrooms. By the week of Nov. 2, with staff falling ill and others having to quarantine because of possible exposure, officials chose to return to fully virtual instruction the following week. Frostburg State switched back and forth between hybrid and all-virtual instruction, too, ending the semester on the latter. It started the semester two weeks early, aiming to finish at what normally would be Thanksgiving break. According to its most recent statistics, in the two weeks ending Nov. 14, the school had a nearly 14% positivity rate of tests. That includes tests conducted on and off campus, the latter of which doesn’t include every negative result. Seventy-three students and staff have tested positive. The university required that students and staff coming to campus be tested at the start of the academic year and then again Sept. 21-23. It also conducts surveillance testing, a sample of students and staff, every two weeks. Jasmine Bonomolo, 20, a junior, is recovering from COVID-19 but feels let down by the school. When she developed symptoms, including a sore throat and cough, at the end of October, she said she was told to go off campus rather than to the campus health center to be tested. Then, Bonomolo said, she isolated herself in her dorm, where she is a resident assistant. She thought she should go to a hotel where the school had rooms for quarantining, but was told the facility wasn’t equipped to care for someone with serious symptoms. Going home was not an option, Bonomolo said, because her household in Dundalk includes an elderly person with existing medical conditions. She eventually did move to the hotel for about a week, but Bonomolo said the entire experience left her disillusioned — for having to put her friends at risk to drive her to be tested and for not receiving more help when she was sick. “It’s a big slap in the face from a place I fell in love with as a junior in high school,” Bonomolo said. “It’s very disappointing.” Jasmine Bonomolo of Dundalk, a student and resident assistant in her dorm at Frostburg State University, contracted COVID-19 and is unhappy with how the school dealt with it. After having relatively few cases earlier in the pandemic, coronavirus numbers spiked in recent weeks in Frostburg and elsewhere in Allegany County. Jasmine Bonomolo of Dundalk, a student and resident assistant in her dorm at Frostburg State University, contracted COVID-19 and is unhappy with how the school dealt with it. After having relatively few cases earlier in the pandemic, coronavirus numbers spiked in recent weeks in Frostburg and elsewhere in Allegany County. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun) Liz Medcalf, a Frostburg State spokeswoman, declined to comment on what happened to Bonomolo. She provided a statement that said the health center offers non-urgent care and is designed to handle minor cases while referring serious ones elsewhere. The statement said a doctor has to review the cases of students with severe symptoms before they can be sent to the quarantine hotel, in case they should be hospitalized. Frostburg State also is under fire from some workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It says the university has not been transparent about cases and is being reactive rather than proactive in responding to the pandemic. Blair Knouse, who manages the chemistry lab and is a member of AFSCME, said employees hear about cases on campus not through official communications but via the grapevine, such as a worker saying, “So-and-so got sent home and they asked us to disinfect the break room kitchen.” “Or you read between the lines,” Knouse said. “‘There will be no package deliveries.’” Medcalf said the university doesn’t publicly identify the locations where someone has tested positive because of privacy concerns. Sometimes, only one person holds a particular job, and identifying where they work would reveal who it is. Knouse said he is worried about what happens in the coming months, after students leave by Tuesday for winter break and return Jan. 25. “The holiday season is going to be rough. People are going to want to see each other,” Knouse said. “They’re going to have to figure out how to bring people back safely.” Frostburg State plans to begin the next semester with a hybrid model, but will monitor the course of the local COVID spread and adjust, if necessary. “I think what happened is we got lulled into a false sense of security. People became a little complacent and started to socialize more.” CUMBERLAND MAYOR RAYMOND M. MORRIS Share quote & link “The virus is fully in charge,” Medcalf said. AFSCME workers in area correctional facilities are worried, too. Cumberland has two maximum-security state prisons, the North Branch Correctional Institution with about 680 beds and the 1,800-bed Western Correctional Institution. There’s also the Federal Correctional Institution Cumberland. “Once it’s in there, it’s an incubator,” said Jeff Grabstein, a correctional officer at North Branch. According to the state, 106 inmates and 34 staff at North Branch and Western together had tested positive as of Monday. The union says the number is higher now. Grabstein said he would favor more restrictions on how many inmates are allowed in the yard or on food service jobs at any one time to help prevent the spread. For now, Grabstein tries to be as safe as he can, wearing a mask and not going out to bars. When he visits his parents, he tries to sit outdoors at a safe distance. At the medium-security federal prison, which has about 1,100 inmates, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons reports that two staff members and one inmate have contracted COVID. With the surge of area cases still relatively recent, Republican state Del. Jason Buckel said he believes there has been a lag in data and information about the disease. He said he has been frustrated by not receiving information on what parts of the county and which schools and other institutions have cases. The county health department said the state has data at the ZIP code, nursing home and school level, although the latter did not appear to have any Allegany cases listed recently. “We probably didn’t need it before,” Buckel said. “But that’s changed now.” Health officials say that with COVID spreading throughout the country, no area is immune. Even a more remote locale such as Allegany has people moving in and out, such as Frostburg students going home for a weekend. “It’s mobility, moving back and forth, that presents the greatest opportunity for transmission,” said Dr. Clifford Mitchell, director of the state health department’s environmental health bureau. “The virus does not respect borders.” The UPMC Western Maryland hospital in Cumberland has once again set up a COVID-19 triage tent outside the emergency department, amid a surge of cases in Allegany County. The UPMC Western Maryland hospital in Cumberland has once again set up a COVID-19 triage tent outside the emergency department, amid a surge of cases in Allegany County. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun) Mitchell said restrictions were initially more lax in Western Maryland, given its relatively lower rates earlier on and given that it’s up to local jurisdictions whether to make restrictions tougher than those set by the state. But now, those counties will need to ramp up with the rest of the state and country. Allegany generally has followed the state’s guidelines on restricting capacities at restaurants, religious facilities and other gathering spaces, which Hogan recently set at 50%, but has not gone beyond them. Local officials have welcomed a new free testing site that state and county health officials opened at the Allegany fairgrounds. City and county officials wrote in an August letter to Hogan that with fall approaching, residents were concerned that they didn’t have a state testing site. “It is important that our community members have access to testing,” they said. “We are respectfully requesting your consideration of establishing a testing site in Allegany County. We would be happy to work with your staff to find an appropriate location for the site.” Here are the known cases of coronavirus in Maryland [GRAPHICS] » The state health department’s chief operating officer, Dennis R. Schrader, responded in an Aug. 27 letter that UPMC and two urgent care centers offered tests, and the county’s testing rate of more than 21% was the seventh-highest in the state. Additionally, he noted, residents were able to get tested at two public events in July, and at pharmacies and their health care providers. “The current infrastructure of testing sites, which includes primary care providers, urgent care clinics and UPMC Western Maryland [the local hospital] is expected to be able to handle the volume of COVID-19 tests needed,” Schrader wrote. Two months later, with cases soaring, the state moved to establish the test site. “Allegany County was one of the ones who didn’t want any restrictions. Nobody wanted to wear masks,” Hogan said at a Nov. 5 news conference. “Now, they’re meeting about actions they might want to take in Allegany County and they’re reaching out to us for help.” Hogan also said the state was working with the county on the fairgrounds testing site, which opened Nov. 11. After having relatively few cases earlier in the pandemic, coronavirus numbers spiked in recent weeks in Cumberland and Allegany County. After having relatively few cases earlier in the pandemic, coronavirus numbers spiked in recent weeks in Cumberland and Allegany County. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun) “We were pleased about that,” said Jacob C. Shade, president of the county commissioners. “The turnaround time was very quick.” As case numbers have risen, more people are getting tested, which should help detect the virus in those without symptoms. Cumberland Fire Chief Donald Dunn said the department had six confirmed cases, and found out about the exposure only because one firefighter got tested before traveling and discovered he was positive. Without a test, some might not have even known they had the virus, he said. “Especially this time of year,” Dunn said. “Everyone gets colds anyway.” Dunn said he believes residents are taking the virus more seriously, now that so many have become infected. With winter approaching Western Maryland sooner than other parts of the state, many fear what’s to come. While Hogan said rural hospitals are “overflowing,” UPMC Western Maryland said it believes it has the capacity to handle what may be in store because it is part of a 40-hospital system. Breaking News Alerts Newsletter As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. ENTER YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS While she would not say how many COVID patients the Cumberland hospital has, Nancy Adams, UPMC Western Maryland senior vice president and chief operating officer, said in a statement that it is “working within our system to share resources, transfer patients and manage capacity.” Maryland coronavirus updates » As of earlier this week, Adams said, there were 156 COVID cases in UPMC’s four hospitals in the region, which includes three in Pennsylvania. That works out to about one of every five beds at the facilities. “Our region has disproportionately higher numbers of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than other regions UPMC serves,” Adams said. “We are currently seeing a higher number of cases than we did at our peak earlier this spring.” Health officials say the advice for Allegany is the same as for the rest of the country as the winter holidays approach. “Avoid gatherings, even though it may be difficult,” Jenelle Mayer, Allegany County’s health officer, said in a statement. “The holidays are a time when we gather with family, friends, and neighbors,” she said, “but it is not advised to gather this year. We need to protect the most vulnerable among us and slow the spread of COVID-19.” Jean Marbella Jean Marbella CONTACT Jean Marbella is a reporter on The Sun’s investigative and enterprise team. She joined The Sun in 1987 and has been a features writer, national correspondent, editor and columnist. She was born in Havre de Grace, grew up in Chicago and graduated from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
In JUST one more day Garrett went from 77 to 97 Allegheny went from 130 to 145 Washington went from 44 to 48 |
Anonymous
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I couldn't find the data for Allegany County (their health department doesn't seem to publish much), but here is hospital data for Washington County:
https://www.washco-md.net/coronavirus-info/ Item 6 in their dashboard. They have 49 hospitalized and can surge to 150 COVID patients. For Western MD, here is the general hospital availability: https://www.miemssalert.com/chats/Default.aspx?hdRegion=124 This includes some other parts of MD and it currently shows only one hospital at capacity -- in Easton on the other side of the Bay. Compare that to the DC area part of MD, where 4 hospitals are currently on red: https://www.miemssalert.com/chats/Default.aspx?hdRegion=5 In the case of Allegany, I wonder how much of the case rise is attributable to the prisons located there. Any way you look at it, the numbers aren't great, but these are counties with small populations so a small jump in number of cases can increase the case rates significantly. |