Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday said that his order for state residents to stay at home is "one of the last tools in our arsenal" to keep the spreading coronavirus at bay.
"We've taken unprecedented action every single day for the past, I think, 25 days. We've issued 26 executive orders starting with declaring a state of emergency, closing all of our state schools, and then a whole host of things," Hogan said during an interview on CNN.
Hogan added: "Yesterday was just kind of the — one of the last tools in our arsenal because we reached the point where the cases had exploded in the Washington region here, in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia."
Maryland's stay-at-home order requires residents to remain in their homes unless they're going to the grocery store, drug store, seeking medical treatment, or exercising alone.
Residents who violate the order could be charged with a misdemeanor and may be given a jail sentence of up to one year or a $5,000 fine.
So far, Maryland has more than 1,400 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including at least 23 deaths. Nearby Washington, D.C., has more than 400 cases, while Virginia has about 1,000 cases. All communities in the Washington metro area currently have stay-at-home orders in place.
Hogan also thinks the federal government needs to work with states to provide more coronavirus tests.
"Everybody in America knows we don't have enough of these things. And the federal government, they are taking great steps to try to address this issue and so are the individual governors in their own states," Hogan said.
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