County Executive Speaks To Nation

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks Discusses COVID-19 Impact on CNN

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By Raoul Dennis

Moments after Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced extending the stay at home order to June, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks appeared on CNN’s John King’s show May 13 to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the county and the needed response.

Alsobrooks opened by giving context to the county’s exposure to the virus by explaining its proximity to the nations’s capital and the numbers of residents who are on or closer to the front lines of the pandemic.

“You can be in Washington, D.C. one moment [and Prince George’s the next] and I can literally walk from Virginia into Prince George’s County. So our borders are porous which means that the Coronavirus has been particularly difficult for Prince Georgians,” the executive said of the nine deaths per day average in the county—making COVID-19 the leading cause of death here. “We have a good number of essential workers here. We house the majority of the federal workforce right here in Prince George’s County - 70% of our residents go into the District to work each day.”

“Is it all on you or is there a regional plan?” King asked regarding a plan for regional leaders who will need to adjust to additional cross-jurisdictional traffic as the nation begins to open up.

“So far it’s been on us and this has been the most challenging aspect, I think, of this entire crisis is the unavailability of testing. We need to get up to about 15,000 tests per week - according to my chief medical officer - in order to begin to think about safely reopening. It’s been a real challenge. Our state government has had such difficulty getting those tests that our state governor had to go out on his own and try to secure those test kits.”

She noted that the state and county are trying to work with private labs to get tests as well.

Alsobrooks also discussed the disproportionate impact of the disease on African American county residents.