Maryland governor describes stay-at-home order as ‘one of the last tools in our arsenal’

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday called the stay-at-home order he issued this week “one of the last tools in our arsenal” in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus in his state.

In a separate interview with NPR, Hogan, a Republican who is the chairman of the National Governors Association, also disputed President Donald Trump’s reported assertion that the lack of adequate testing has been resolved as “just not true.”

“We’ve taken unprecedented action every single day for the past, I think, 25 days. We’ve issued 26 executive orders starting with declaring a state of emergency, closing all of our state schools, and then a whole host of things,” Hogan told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.” “Yesterday was just kind of the — one of the last tools in our arsenal because we reached the point where the cases had exploded in the Washington region here, in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.”

The virus is continuing to spread in the state, with more 1,400 confirmed cases and at least 23 deaths. The District of Columbia has over 400 cases and Virginia has 1,000 cases — bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the region to nearly 3,000. DC and Virginia both issued stay-at-home orders on Monday as well.

The New York Times reported Monday that Trump said on a call with governors, “I haven’t heard about testing in weeks” and “I haven’t heard about testing being a problem” in response to a comment by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock who said states lack adequate tests.

“Yeah, that’s just not true. I mean, I know they have taken some steps to create new tests but they are not actually produced and distributed out to the states,” Hogan told NPR Tuesday when asked about Trump’s assertion. “So it is an aspirational thing and they’ve got some new things in the works but they are not actually out on the streets and no states have enough testing.”

During a press briefing Monday, Trump touted that “over one million Americans have been tested” for coronavirus. Earlier this month, Trump said testing was “going very smooth.”

Asked about federal government support in testing and the amount of testing needed, Hogan told Berman the states and federal government should coordinate their responses.

“Everybody in America knows we don’t have enough of these things. And the federal government, they are taking great steps to try to address this issue and so are the individual governors in their own states,” he said. “Because it doesn’t matter who’s supposed to be doing these things. We’ve all got to get together and get them done because it’s going to save lives.”

Hogan also said, “Well, without the tests we really are flying blind.”

“You know, we’re sort of guessing about where the outbreaks are and about what the infection rate in the hospitalization rates are and the mortality rates,” he said. “So we have a pretty good understanding based on a small amount of data, but so the testing is important.”

Under Maryland’s stay-at-home order, residents are only allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons such as visiting grocery stores, pharmacies, to exercise or seek medical attention. It is also being enforced by law enforcement, and those who violate the order could face a misdemeanor and be jailed for up to one year or fined $5,000.

There are more than 161,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States and more than 3,000 deaths across the country. At least 30 states and the District of Columbia have issued a stay-at-home order.

This story has been updated to include additional comments from Hogan.