BALTIMORE _ Maryland's public schools are closing Monday for the next two weeks, state officials announced Thursday, an extraordinary step that will send about 1 million children home in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The move was part of a sweeping directive from Gov. Larry Hogan, acting in the wake of the state's first case of the virus spreading within the community rather than from travel.
Hogan also directed senior centers to close and large gatherings to be canceled. He closed the cruise ship terminal at the Port of Baltimore and activated the National Guard.
The sweeping order also called for state employees to telework if possible.
"We all need to do our part to stop this virus from spreading," Hogan said.
Still, Hogan said, "daily life as we know it" should not come to a halt. Grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations should remain open, he said.
The move came on a day of rapid-fire announcements of closures, cancellations and other measures designed to quell the spread of the coronavirus.
Earlier, the state reported its first case of the new coronavirus unrelated to travel, indicating that COVID-19 is spreading from person to person in the community.
A man in his 60s in Prince George's County tested positive for the virus Wednesday and is hospitalized. He had no known recent exposure to the pathogen through travel or contact with a person who was known to be infected, officials said.
Such spreading of a disease is known as community transmission. It can be an indication that there are more cases of an illness than health officials have confirmed, such as in Washington state, where the novel coronavirus spread undetected for weeks and where most of the U.S. deaths from COVID-19 have occurred.
"While not unexpected, the news of community transmission in Maryland emphasizes the urgency of everyone doing their part to reduce the spread of the virus," said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement in the Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former state health secretary. "This is not a drill."
Hogan had signaled earlier in the day that he would announce "major actions that the state is taking to protect public health."
"The first case of COV-19 community transmission in Maryland means we are entering a new phase of working to mitigate and limit the spread of this pandemic," Hogan said in a statement. "What we are seeing now is what we have been anticipating and preparing for over the last several weeks."
The Prince George's man is one of 12 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Maryland.
The other Maryland cases are linked to travel to places including Albania, Spain and Boston, and to a Nile River cruise ship in Egypt.
There are more than 125,000 cases of the respiratory disease worldwide, and more than 4,600 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting 1,215 cases and 36 deaths.
Symptoms include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. Most people experience mild symptoms, like a bad cold, but it becomes more serious in about 20% of cases and can progress into pneumonia and require hospitalization.
