Rockville virtual support group forms to help those stressed by coronavirus

Stressed out about coronavirus? A new COVID-19 virtual support group has been formed by Zixuan Wang, Psy.D. at Quince Orchard Psychotherapy in Rockville. With gatherings now forbidden due to the pandemic, the group will meet online once a week, from 1:00-2:00 PM on Fridays. Each session costs $20, and with no paper goods available to buy online or off, you've probably got the money. For more information or to register online, go here.

Montgomery County urgently seeking PPE donations for medical, public safety personnel

Montgomery County issued a statement early this morning asking for donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical professionals and public safety employees. Items needed for the coronavirus crisis include

• Respirators (N95 or KN95)
• Masks (surgical or procedural)
• Gowns (medical, isolation, or surgical)
• Face Shields (medical goggles or safety glasses)
• Gloves

County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director Dr. Earl Stoddard said the County has already received much-appreciated donations from individuals, construction companies, laboratories and manufacturers, but that more are still needed. Anyone who is in a position to donate such equipment can fill out this form online.

Rockville biotech firm begins COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine test

BIOQUAL, a Rockville-based biotech firm, announced Tuesday that it has begun in-vivo testing of coronavirus COVID-19 vaccines. The company, founded in 1981, said that it has been developing animal models for a vaccine since February in partnership with Dr. Dan Barouch at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Ragon Institute, both affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

BIOQUAL has previously been active in vaccine development against AIDS, Hepatitis, Zika, and Chikungunya, to name a few. The firm is located at 9600 Medical Center Drive.

Montgomery County policy on coronavirus contact tracing: Do ask, don't tell

Most Montgomery County residents who live through the coronavirus pandemic will likely never forget the dramatic announcement of the jurisdiction's Patient Zero, Patient One and Patient Two - three travelers who brought the Covid-19 virus back to the county with them. The news meant the dreaded and deadly virus was now officially here. State and County officials said they would not reveal those patients' identities, and no one actually wanted or expected them to. But the public did want to know where those three people had gone while contagious, the general vicinity of MoCo in which they were located, and who had been exposed. Officials assured us that extensive interviews would take place to map out this information.

They never released it.

It's too late now. The three patients, thankfully, recovered. But aside from a single event at a Rockville retirement community, Montgomery County residents were never told which stores, restaurants, gyms, or other business and public facilities these people went to while contagious.

Whomever they exposed to the virus - and it's not credible to claim they contacted no human beings since returning from their travels - has either contracted it or fought it off, recovered or died. So it would be pointless to demand this information at this late date.

But the policy of "Do ask, don't tell" continues. Out of 388 known cases of coronavirus in Montgomery County, only a handful of exposure points have been made public, with the County liquor store on Hampden Lane in Bethesda being the only memorable one recently. The County has primarily announced when its own employees have tested positive, but it has not made public the public places those few dozen people went while contagious.

Is contact tracing being performed? If so, where are the results being recorded, and why have they not been released in a timely fashion while still relevant for each case? The local media hasn't pressed for these answers. While some countries have made the controversial move to track all citizens via their cell phones to provide the most-thorough contract tracing possible, and then alerted those exposed, here we are getting no answers from the honor-system interviews we were assured would take place when the first cases were confirmed on March 5(!!).

The failure to contact trace, or to make the results public (without identifying the patients, of course), has put all of us at risk. Along with the federal government's farcically-weak travel restrictions (a cruise ship loaded with infected Americans was allowed to dock, and the passengers disperse nationwide on commercial flights, only about 10 days ago - even after all federal officials knew at that point), the lack of information prevented potentially contaminated facilities from being cleaned according to coronavirus protocols, and those exposed from self-quarantining away from vulnerable family and community members.

Along with the deliberate failure at the federal, state and county levels to ensure sufficient hospital beds, masks, PPE, ventilators and other supplies would be available for a pandemic everyone has known was coming since SARS in 2002, a policy of "You can ask, but we won't tell you" has made the coronavirus outbreak even more dangerous for Montgomery County residents than it had to be.

Image courtesy CDC

Montgomery County Planning Board seat open for a non-Democrat

The current term of Montgomery County Planning Board commissioner Gerard Cichy will end on June 14, and the Montgomery County Council is now accepting applications for the seat. Under the current rules, the board cannot have more than three members from one political party. Since there are currently three Democrats on the board, applicants for Cichy's seat cannot be a Democrat.

This does not mean you have to be a Republican to apply. Applicants could be Republicans or unaffiliated voters, but they can also be a member of another party such as the Green Party or Libertarian Party.

Annual compensation for commissioners is $30,000. A financial disclosure form must be filled out; only the ultimate commissioner selected by the Council will have his or her disclosure form made public prior to being sworn in.

It would be nice to have a member who represents the interests of residents, rather than the Montgomery County cartel! If you are such a person, here is how to apply:

Letters of application expressing interest, including a resume (no more than 4 pages) listing professional and civic experience, political party affiliation, home and office telephone numbers and an email address, should be addressed to: Council President Sidney Katz, County Council Office, Stella B. Werner Council Office Building, 100 Maryland Avenue, Rockville, Maryland 20850. Applications can also be submitted via email to county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov

Letters of application and resumes are made public as part of the appointment process, and are available for public review. The interviews are conducted in public and will be televised.

Letters with resumes must be received no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, April 17. It is the Council’s policy not to consider applications received after the deadline. After the closing date, Councilmembers will review the letters of application and select applicants for interviews to be held soon thereafter.

What does a mandatory Stay at Home order mean in Maryland?

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took a somewhat stern tone in announcing his mandatory Stay at Home order Monday morning, frustrated with ongoing violations of his earlier advisory Stay at Home policy. There was confusion among some in the following hours about exactly what the order means. For most people, it means very little change to what you've already been doing. The key change is that the order can now be enforced by police, and gratuitous violations could earn you a fine or jail time.

Under the order, you may leave your home for essential travel to buy groceries, fill up your gas tank or seek auto repairs, shop at drug stores or liquor stores, travel to your job like you've been doing if it was classified as essential (or otherwise, telework, if that's possible), visit another home or property you own - i.e. to check on utilities, travel to care for a relative or friend in need, and go outside for fresh air, exercise, and walking or running as long as you keep six feet away from other people.

Hogan ordered a text alert to be sent to all devices capable of receiving one in the state. The alert went our successfully at 3:00 PM Monday afternoon. This was a very effective move to get the public's attention and reinforce the seriousness of the situation. The point on gatherings could have been clarified a bit better. You really should not be engaging in any group activities of ten people at this time if you are serious about protecting yourself and others from contracting coronavirus! That is nuts. Social distancing would be expected if such an event were to be held, however.

Montgomery County's shortage of hospital beds: I told you so - ten years ago

Headline from my March 9, 2010 article
calling for 2 new hospitals to be built in
Montgomery County

My uncanny ability to predict Montgomery County's future could have been put to good use had I been elected to the County Council when I first ran ten years ago. Thanks to a news blackout by a local press controlled by the County's political cartel, that hasn't happened. But what I've predicted in articles and speeches has consistently happened. The latest controversy over Montgomery County's missing hospital beds reminded me of a ten-year-old article I wrote arguing for the need to build two additional hospitals in the county, entitled, "A Real Health Care Plan for Montgomery County."

According to the Maryland Department of Health, Montgomery County is 500 beds short of the number it will need to serve coronavirus patients at the peak of the outbreak. Imagine if we had started on the long process of adding our hundreds of missing hospital beds ten years ago.

In 2010, there were proposals on the table from Adventist Healthcare and Holy Cross to build a new upcounty hospital. This followed Montgomery County's failure to require more beds in approving Suburban Hospital's expansion plan a few years earlier, something I also criticized County officials for at the time.

State and County officials were determined to build only one new hospital upcounty. Looking at the 2002 SARS and 2009 H1NI pandemics, and the fact that the D.C. region is a major terror target, I correctly saw our needs differently.

"I believe that our county and state must commit the resources necessary to build both projects, and make further investments over time to expand those facilities, if we are to face the health and public safety challenges the near future poses," I wrote. "The need for more hospital beds could not be more clear."

I noted an incident one day in January 2007, when a norovirus outbreak and a large number of flu victims overwhelmed the emergency departments at Suburban, Sibley and Shady Grove hospitals with sick patients. Ambulances bringing patients with other injuries or illnesses were being diverted to other hospitals, according to a first responder familiar with events that day.

"Imagine what the situation will be if a terror attack, disease outbreak, or natural disaster does occur," I warned. "It's time to wake up. And time to build two hospitals."

Remember when I was right about the underground fuel spill in Bethesda, the need to find the "missing" African-American cemetery before starting the Westbard sector plan process, the BETCO property land swap money not going to the Little Falls watershed as promised by the Council, the plan to bulldoze existing single-family home neighborhoods the Council finally admitted in 2019, and what a fiscal disaster the County's finances would be in if we hit an economic downturn (like is happening just now?). "We can't go on like this," I told several County Council debate audiences in 2010 about our structural budget deficit, out-of-control spending, declining revenue and skyrocketing debt.

Just to name a few. Too bad you wound up with the council members who brought you more important government actions, like banning trans fats, circus animals and tanning beds for teenagers.

When coronavirus hits Montgomery County full strength in the weeks ahead, and we don't have enough hospital beds, many residents may find themselves once again having voter's remorse.