Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz, during a Dec. 13 media availability, discussed such matters as COVID-19 and crime, stating, for instance, that there has been a 29% increase in homicides from this time last year, as well as a significant increase in auto thefts.

Noting that the council has been following comments by the county executive and state’s attorney, as well as a task force that was recently created to address some of the crime issues in downtown Silver Spring, Albornoz said, “The council stands ready to support efforts to ensure the public’s safety of all of our residents because we know there is nothing more important, and we don’t believe this is incongruent with helping to ensure that there is trust and accountability and transparency in our law enforcement.”

He also said that a statistic that stuck out for him at a meeting in Clarksburg, Md., which he recently attended with Councilmember Sidney Katz, is that more than 80% of car thefts can be prevented by simply locking one’s car.

“[T]here’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that we as a community can do together and collectively to help minimize crime, but also support each other,” he said.

Noting that there will be a full council session soon to address this issue, Albornoz said, “A number of my colleagues have expressed interest in having a broader discussion about solutions, as well as the identification of problems, and so we do anticipate that a session will be scheduled when we come back from the break in January.”

Also speaking during the media availability was Council Vice President Evan Glass. Among other things, he said that one “issue I just want to elevate as the first LGBTQ+ member of the council, openly LGBTQ+ and the first member of that community to serve in council leadership, I just want to say that I’ve been seeing the news and the reports of hate crimes that have been taking place throughout the county.”

He said, in part, that he has been in touch with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) leadership, as well as with parents and students throughout MCPS, to make “sure that they know that they are welcome, that they are loved, and that we’re going to do everything we can here to make sure that our schools remain safe learning environments.”

COVID-19 update

Another matter discussed during the media event was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Albnoroz noted that the council will continue to work with its public health officials to review all of its policies and recommendations involving COVID-19, and “will make sure that we are nimble and make adjustments as necessary once we have information that’s on the ground, either provided to us from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] or state public health officials, or, frankly, just by seeing ourselves what’s happening on the ground.”

During his presentation at the Dec. 13 media event, Montgomery County Health and Human Services (HHS) Public Health Emergency Preparedness Manager Sean O’Donnell noted that while a few cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant have been identified in Maryland, there have been no cases identified yet in Montgomery County, where “a large number of people” have gotten booster shots, which is “the most recommended thing to protect yourself, not only from Omicron, but from Delta as well.”

He noted that one of the pieces of data that the county is monitoring closely is the county’s hospitalization rate and how many COVID patients are in acute care beds and in ICU beds.

“We’re now at 106 patients with COVID diagnoses in the Montgomery County acute care beds and 35 in ICU beds,” O’Donnell said. “This is a fairly significant increase from a few weeks ago. However, these do include some patients who have been transferred into one of our acute care hospitals at Takoma Park, which is one of the common things that some of our hospitals do, not just in Montgomery County, but neighboring counties will sometimes transfer stable COVID patients to the acute care center that is at Takoma Park, so these are not all Montgomery County originated patients.”

He added: “[W]e’re still continuing to see more than half of our new cases attributed to not fully vaccinated individuals and we just want to keep stressing how important it is for people to get their first and second dose.”

Among other things, he noted that the county has received about 10,000 rapid tests from its state partners over the last few weeks, and has distributed more than 7,000 of those. He said, “We are really trying to focus [on] getting these tests to populations who have an increased risk of exposure due to their occupation, or their living setting, or also have limited access to test sites or health care transportation.”

Unaccompanied immigrant minors

During the question-and-answer portion of the media event, Albornoz responded to a question pertaining to the status of unaccompanied immigrant minors who have come to Montgomery County.

He noted, “[W]e did receive an update just a little over a month ago in a joint education and culture HHS committee session, in which we learned that there have been 1,800 students [who] have arrived since July [who] have been identified to us through our partners at the federal government, and we have a really robust team working cohesively together between our partners in Montgomery County Public Schools, Health and Human Services, [and] non-profit organizations, to help provide holistic care and support for these families.”

He added, in part, “[I]t’s important for our entire community to help ensure that these families get what they need, particularly in the midst of a pandemic where public health is impacted by every single one of us and we must remain united.”