Crisis Manager

IN HIS SECOND TERM, GOVERNOR LARRY HOGAN FACES A CATASTROPHE LIKE NO OTHER.

- Ron Cassie

Three months after his inauguration, Governor Larry Hogan sent Maryland National Guard troops to Baltimore to stem the tide of violence and property damage resulting from protests of Freddie Gray’s death due to injuries he suffered while in city police custody. Two months later, he was diagnosed with stage three non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Neither of those two crises, the first public, the second personal, prepared him for the COVID-19 pandemic. Of his private ordeal, he said: “I got life-threatening cancer and I was worried about my own life and worried about my own family. This one [COVID-19], I’m worried about everyone’s life in the whole state. Six million people.”

First briefed about the novel virus by the nation’s Coronavirus Task Force in early February at the National Governors Association’s winter meeting, it wasn’t until 66 infectious cases at a Washington state nursing home and three cases in Maryland were reported on February 29 that the contagious nature of the deadly virus became clear. Within a week, Hogan had issued a state of emergency. On March 16—following a similar timeline as other early wave states—Hogan closed schools, restricted the size of gatherings, and limited bars and restaurants to carry-out service. On March 19, California became the first state to issue a full stay-at-home order. Hogan followed suit 11 days later.