Dr. Travis Gayles, Montgomery County's health officer, spoke during a virtual event hosted by Bethesda Beat on Tuesday.
Screenshot via Zoom
Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles said Tuesday that the county might lift some restrictions on gathering limits and child care capacity if COVID-19 cases continue to decrease.
Speaking during a virtual event hosted by Bethesda Beat, Gayles said county officials are guided by the declining spread of the virus and the increasing number of vaccinations.
When asked about a draft executive order that is in the works, Gayles declined to share specifics, but he said county officials have been working with “child care system colleagues” to return capacity to the same levels as the state.
He noted that the county hadn’t moved at the same pace as the state on child care limits before because there were more COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County than in other parts of the state.
Gayles said the county is also considering easing restrictions on the number of people who can gather in one place.
“We also would be looking at how we could make some incremental changes in terms of gathering sizes. Right now, we’re at 10 (indoors) and 25 (outdoors). And so those are the types of things that we would be paying attention to,” he said.
Bethesda Beat requested a copy of the draft executive order on Tuesday, but the county attorney’s office declined to provide it.
Silvia Kinch, chief of the Division of Labor Relations and Public Safety for the Office of the County Attorney, wrote in an email Tuesday afternoon that the county won’t release the draft order because County Executive Marc Elrich has not approved or signed it yet.
“The basis for the denial would be executive privilege and denial is in the public interest because it would avoid creating potential confusion,” she wrote.
The County Council is expected to vote on the executive order on March 16.
Tuesday’s virtual event with Gayles was moderated by Steve Hull, the editor and publisher of Bethesda Magazine and Bethesda Beat, and Briana Adhikusuma, a reporter for Bethesda Beat. About 500 people registered to listen and ask questions.
Gayles noted during the event that when the county began easing restrictions during the pandemic in the summer of 2020, cases were at a lower level than they are currently.
He said he is “cautiously optimistic” due to the increasing numbers of vaccinations in the county, but the presence of the United Kingdom, Brazil and South African variants of the virus in Maryland are cause for concern.
“We know that they are highly contagious and spread easier and quicker,” he said. “It’s important to continue to monitor those trends because we don’t want to have a situation where we open up prematurely, where we increase capacity limits and we increase activity that could set us up for a next wave or surge of cases while we move forward and try to get more people vaccinated.”
On Tuesday, Gov. Larry Hogan announced that, beginning Friday, capacity limits for indoor and outdoor dining can be lifted across the state. Hogan also removed restrictions for retail stores, gyms, houses of worship and recreation facilities.
But Hogan said local jurisdictions can choose to keep more stringent restrictions, as they have done for months.
Mary Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Health, wrote in a text message Tuesday afternoon that officials are “reviewing” Hogan’s order and have not made any decisions about whether to follow the new guidelines.
Large outdoor and indoor venues — including wedding and concert venues, convention centers, racing facilities and sporting venues — will be allowed to have up to 50% capacity in Maryland, according to Hogan.
This story will be updated.
Staff reporters Briana Adhikusuma and Caitlynn Peetz contributed to this story.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com
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