MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now) – It was March 5, 2020, when the Maryland Department of Health told Montgomery County that it had the first three confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state.
It’s a day County Executive Marc Elrich says he’ll never forget.
“People were trying to figure out ‘how does this thing spread itself?’” Elrich said. “What are the vectors of spreading? It did not take long to realize the only vector was people.”
After learning of the three confirmed cases, Elrich pulled together his public health team and the tough decisions began.
“To minimize public gatherings and crowds of people because we knew to the extent that we could minimize public contact, we could minimize the spread of COVID,” he recalled.
Many other people remember the early days of the virus as well.
“It shut everything down,” Tony Leahy of Silver Spring said. “It put businesses out of work, people out of work, basically, shut the economy off.”
Reginald Cyntje, who also lives in Silver Spring, said, “The fact that people got sick was one problem, but the other pandemic how folks were affected mentally.”
Cyntje says he had COVID-19 three times.
“I never lost my smell or taste,” he said. “Sometimes it was like a really bad fever, sometimes it was aches, sometimes it was just being exhausted.”
While the majority of people pulled through, thousands in Montgomery County did not. Elrich says there have been more than 2,500 COVID-related deaths in the county.
