Opinion: Maryland’s reopening, especially of sports stadiums, is too soon

Diana Zuckerman, The Washington Post Letters to the Editor: March 15, 2021


Regarding the March 11 Metro article “Md. reopening surprises stakeholders”:

Last year, coronavirus tests were mostly unavailable in some Maryland communities. This year, Maryland has one of the worst track records for vaccinating people. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has repeatedly responded to bad news by lifting restrictions prematurely, and last week he reopened nearly everything, apparently without consulting other leaders throughout the state — at least not the Democratic ones.

The governor chose former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield to help with the coronavirus response, apparently not realizing that the CDC was criticized across the country and around the world as ineffective and politicized under his leadership. But the last straw may be Mr. Hogan’s decision to open sports stadiums to 50 percent capacity. Regardless of how far the fans sit from one another, when tens of thousands of fans all stand in line to get into the ballpark at the same time, converge in huge crowds as they enter the ballpark to get to their seats and are crammed together as they leave, there is enormous opportunity for a virus to spread, and absolutely no possibility of enforcing masks or tracking who infected whom.

To read the letter on The Washington Post website, click here.