Midday

Today, a discussion with the people working to put food on the tables of Maryland families who are experiencing food insecurity because of COVID 19.

Tom’s first guest is Carmen Del Guercio, the president and CEO of the Maryland Food Bank, a non-profit organization that distributes food to pantries, soup kitchens and other organizations. Donations of to the Food Bank are currently down 90%.

Later in the program, Tom is joined by Michael J. Wilson, the director of Maryland Hunger Solutions and an advocate for the expansion of nutrition and food assistance programs. Wilson sets the record straight on new guidelines for federal food assistance programs.

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This morning, Maryland officials announced 854 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to at least 13,684 patients afflicted with COVID-19. At least 582 Marylanders have perished so far in the pandemic.

There are hopeful signs that the rates of new infections and hospitalizations are leveling off in some of the nation’s worst-affected locations like New York City, Chicago and New Orleans. But hot spots continue to develop around the country, especially in nursing homes. Last week, a Future Care facility in Northwest Baltimore reported 170 cases. That’s in the 21215-zip code, which has the highest concentration of cases in the state.

Nationally, the US has more than 750,000 cases, equal to the number of known infections in Spain, Italy, France and Germany combined. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 37,000 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States. The first US fatality was reported on February 29.

Today on Midday, updates on efforts to mitigate COVID-19, the outlook for testing, and redoubled efforts of outreach to the African American community here in Baltimore. Later this hour, Tom will be joined by Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.

But Tom's first guest is Dr. Lisa Maragakis, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist with Johns Hopkins Medicine, who serves on Governor Hogan’s Maryland Coronavirus Response Team. She’s also the Executive Director of the Hopkins Biocontainment Unit and the Incidents Commander for COVID-19 response at John Hopkins.

Dr. Maragakis joins Tom the line from her office at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, two leading public health experts provide updates on efforts to mitigate COVID-19, the outlook for testing, and redoubled efforts to reach out to the African American community here in Baltimore.

Earlier in today's program, Tom spoke with Dr. Lisa Maragakis, a senior specialist in epidemiology and infectious diseases with Johns Hopkins Medicine, and a member of the Governor's MD Coronavirus Response Team. Their conversation is posted separately on this site. Now, Tom talks with Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, who joins us on the line to discuss the local dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maryland officials said Monday the state has confirmed 854 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, reversing a brief downward trend in the number of new daily infections. The state now has at least 13,684 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The state is also reporting 34 more people have died or probably died due to the disease since Saturday, bringing the statewide death count up to 582 people.

Prince George’s and Montgomery counties continue to lead the state in coronavirus cases, with 3,583 and 2,647 cases, respectively. But according to the state report, the largest number of coronavirus cases per zip code is 269 in 21215, which includes part of Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

The area includes the FutureCare Lochearn facility, a nursing home in the city where at least 170 people — 129 residents and 41 staffers — recently tested positive for COVID-19.

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Last month, after Governor Hogan issued a stay-at-home order for Marylanders, theater companies had to cancel the live performances that are at the heart of their artform.

But many of the 40+ theater groups in our area are pivoting to digital technology to stream performances directly onto computers and tablets and TV screens, and they’re devising other imaginative ways to keep their audiences engaged.

Joining Tom on the line today is the award-winning Brooklyn-based actor and playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays. She stars in the one-person play she wrote and video-produced with Baltimore Center Stage, called Where We Stand. The play is being streamed online to pay-what-you-can ticket buyers until April 26. Center Stage Artistic Director Stephanie Ybarra also joins Tom to discuss the theater company's innovative response to the pandemic shutdown, and its quick pivot to virtual audience engagements, including its multi-theater collaboration on Play At Home, in which playwrights (including Ms. Grays) were commissioned to write short, ten-minute plays that house-bound audiences can download, for free, to read or perform in their homes.


Then, Tom talks with Genevieve de Mahy, founder and Artistic Director of Single Carrot Theatre, a company that intentionally left its theater home last year to seek novel venues and to engage in more educational and community-centered theater. Ms. DeMahy talks about the next installment in Single Carrot’s popular Flipside Series (which include its Cabarets and Drunk Classics), one-night-only events that de Mahy says "are fun...and embrace the unexpected." Tonight's event, called "Pajama Party! A Virtual Variety Show," takes place via Zoom at 8pm.

For more info on the Single Carrot theater event, click here.

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Dr. Sonja Santelises, the CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools on how are teachers, students and parents are working their way through the challenges of distance learning.

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My guest today is Washington Post columnist and Brooking Institution senior fellow E.J. Dionne, who has written a timely book that makes the case for how Joe Biden can bring the Progressive and Moderate wings of the Democratic Party together. The book is called "Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country."

Dionne calls for a Politics of Remedy and a Politics of Dignity, premised in a shared vision of citizenship. He advocates for what the scholar Robert Wright first called, “Progressives Realism,” which embraces democratic and social justice concerns, but also takes into account America’s role in a dangerous world, rife with threats from countries like Russia, China and a handful of regional autocracies.

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Today on Midday, the author and entrepreneur Steven Brill on his latest project, NewsGuard, a source that exposes sites that are deliberately and often maliciously proliferating false claims about the coronavirus.

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Baltimore journalist Baynard Woods joins Tom now.

A month ago, on March 15th, Baynard suddenly developed a fever, and he was coughing. Over the next three weeks, on social media, he chronicled his experience as his illness got worse, and as it ebbed and flowed until he was finally without COVID- 19 symptoms.

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Today, a look at Psychological First Aid in times of crisis. Dr. George Everly is my guest. He’s a pioneer in the field, and co-author of The Johns Hopkins Guide to Psychological First Aid. For more than three decades, he has helped survivors of catastrophe -- including war, natural disaster, terrorist attacks and now, pandemic.

Dr. Everly is a psychologist and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an adjunct professor of international health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He writes a blog for Psychology Today called When Disaster Strikes: Inside Disaster Psychology.

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Mother Mary Lange founded of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in the 1820s. Activist Ralph Moore talks about efforts to persuade Pope Francis to canonize Mother Lange as the first African American Saint.

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