Around Maryland

Less than two weeks after announcing stricter quarantine guidelines for unvaccinated students possibly exposed to COVID-19, Montgomery County Public Schools officials on Tuesday backtracked, announcing they will no longer require “close contacts” to quarantine while awaiting test results. On Friday evening of the first week of school, MCPS officials announced that any unvaccinated student considered a close contact of someone with a symptom that could be associated with COVID-19 would be required to quarantine until the symptomatic student provided a negative test.

Through the ebbs and flows of the coronavirus pandemic, the phone calls have kept coming. A small army of so-called contact tracers has worked to stem transmissions by dialing Marylanders infected with COVID-19 to ask that they isolate themselves and consider who else they may have exposed so they, too, could be rung up. More than a million calls later, the massive effort was supposed to end next month with the closing of the state’s main call center, which is run by NORC, a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Chicago.

Maryland is almost done distributing $1 million in incentives for youngsters to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Every 12- to 17-year-old in the state who’s gotten at least one shot is automatically eligible for a chance to win a $50,000 college scholarship. “We still have four more scholarships to draw next Monday, Labor Day, and we’re really urging everybody 12 to 17, ‘Go get your shot this week, so that you’re eligible for the drawing on Monday,'” Maryland Secretary of Health Dennis R. Schrader said.

As more than 100 people gathered outside the front doors of Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, some cars and buses on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard honked their horns in acknowledgment of the accomplishment. The blessing and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first new Catholic school in the city in 60 years featured remarks from Archbishop William E. Lori; James Sellinger, chancellor of education for the archdiocesan Catholic schools; Superintendent Donna Hargens; a student from what will be the first graduating class of the school; and civic dignitaries.

When Maryland officials lifted statewide mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions July 1, it looked like the pandemic might be, well, maybe not over, but at least suppressed by widespread vaccination. Infection, hospitalization and death rates were down substantially across Maryland and the nation. Offices, restaurants, bars and gyms started welcoming back those who had stayed away for so long. Older adults and people with certain medical conditions got the green light from federal and state agencies to break out of isolation and hug their loved ones.