Gov. Larry Hogan announced the re-opening of additional non-essential businesses effective Friday, June 5, at 5 p.m., including some additional personal services, as Maryland moves into Phase 2 of his Roadmap to Recovery plan. Howard County will be aligning its reopening status with the State of Maryland, as well as his previous orders, which includes allowing indoor faith services as outlined by the Governor’s Executive Order.

The Department of Recreation & Parks is reopening restrooms at its parks; however, playgrounds will remain closed. County Executive Calvin Ball will be signing an Executive Order tomorrow to bring Howard County’s reopening status in line with Maryland.

“We continue to see progress on the building blocks needed to reopen safely and effectively,” said County Executive Calvin Ball. “We expect our case numbers to increase as we test more of our population and will be keeping a close eye on our hospitalization, ICU and ventilator rates over the coming weeks. Residents should continue to be vigilant in this new normal ― just because we are making progress does not mean the risk is completely eliminated.”

Howard County is making data informed decisions on reopening guidance. CDC Guidelines call for a downward trajectory of the positivity rate below 15 percent for 14 days after entering Phase 1. Currently, the county is seeing the following COVID-19 data trends that continue to progress in the right direction to allow further re-openings:

● A rolling seven-day average positivity rate of 8.8 percent.

o The State of Maryland has a collective positivity rate of 9.5 percent.

● Howard County has tested approximately 15,712 people, or 4.5 percent of its population.

o Howard County has increased testing from 1,300 tests performed each week as of May 14 to now more than 3,700 in the last week as new testing sites have come on board.

● Howard County has increased contact tracers from 11 as of May 14th to 35 today. The Health Department is expecting additional hires in the coming week.

● During the past seven days, the Howard County General Hospital’s ICU utilization rate dropped from 70 percent to 52 percent.

  • While a majority of the utilization in the ICU is driven by non-COVID patients, the number of COVID patients in the ICU has dropped from seven to three during that same period.
  • Although May has seen multiple instances of an ICU COVID patient count of three, the last time outside of May ICU COVID patient numbers was at or below three was on April 7.

● Howard County also continues to increase PPE supply and testing sites. There currently more than a 30-day supply of PPE.

Residents can obtain a diagnostic test at the following sites:

● VEIP Site, Columbia: 6340 Woodside Court, Columbia

● CVS Pharmacy, Fulton: 8197 Westside Boulevard, Fulton

● First Call Urgent Care Center: 10981 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel

● All Care Urgent Care: 9396 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City

● Ouch Urgent Care: 6020 Meadowridge Center Drive. Suite F, Elkridge

● Righttime Medical Care: 6334 Cedar Lane, Columbia