The state of Maryland and the rest of the area around Washington DC could well be the next epicenter of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, but Gov Larry Hogan (R) hopes that he has helped the state put enough measures in place to mitigate the worst.

Hogan has become a prominent face since the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading in the United States. In particular, Hogan has become notable as the rare Republican willing to contradict Donald Trump during the crisis.

There have been more than 1.6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. The virus has killed more than 97,000.

In the United States, 476,397 cases have been reported, including 17,843 deaths, according to the most recent figures.

So far, the area in and around New York has been the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, where most of the cases have been. But that is expected to eventually shift.

“Our numbers continue to climb. We are a couple of weeks behind New York but we took really aggressive and early action in our state and we are hoping to lessen the problems here,” Hogan said. “But in the Baltimore and Washington corridor we are now at about 12,000 and probably about fifth or sixth in the nation.

“We have about 5 million people in between those two cities and our numbers continue to rise fairly rapidly, it’s not nearly the kind of situation you have a New York but it’s an area that now you have the federal government focus on as the Washington Metropolitan area all the way through Baltimore,” he added. “Our state has a pretty good population center right there surrounding those two cities where we’ve got issues and it’s growing rapidly.”

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