Frustrated by the Trump administration’s lack of progress in developing COVID-19 testing, as well as the president’s claims of broad availability of coronavirus testing, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and other governors spoke out over the weekend.

“It’s not accurate to say there’s plenty of testing out there, and the governors should just get it done,” Hogan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “That’s just not being straightforward.”

Hogan added that it was “absolutely false” to claim that governors were not acting aggressively enough to pursue as much testing as possible.

At a press conference Monday afternoon in Annapolis, Hogan announced that the state had secured 5,000 test kits from South Korea—which officials said would give Maryland the ability to perform 500,000 new coronavirus tests. The Korean Air flight arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Saturday, Hogan said, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and other agencies signed off on the plan and shipment.

To date, Maryland has conducted more than 71,000 tests for the novel coronavirus. Nearly 14,000 confirmed infections have been recorded in the state, including more than 854 confirmed new cases in the last 24 hours. More than 3,000 people have been hospitalized in the state so far because of the COVID-19 virus. There are also now more than 500 confirmed deaths in Maryland from the virus and almost 70 other probable deaths.

The South Korean coronavirus tests come from a company based there called LabGenomics at a cost of $9 million to Maryland. In his remarks, Hogan said it was a small amount for the state to pay, relative to an estimated $2.8 billion in lost revenues as the state remains largely shut down in an effort to contain the virus.

Hogan also said that the shipment does not mean that Maryland suddenly has the ability to perform 500,000 tests. “We don’t have everything [else] we need,” Hogan said, noting a shortage of lab equipment, as well as the swabs and chemical re-agents required to successfully perform the tests. “Some [of those things] have been acquired. It will take time to ramp up everything we need to utilize all of the tests.”

Hogan said that is Korean-born wife, Yumi Hogan, was involved in getting the negotiation process started, adding that his team had been at work since late March on the effort he nicknamed, “Operation Enduring Friendship.” It was the first-ever direct freight flight from Incheon Airport to BWI. Yumi Hogan is the first Korean-American first lady of any state and the first Asian-American first lady in Maryland.

The new tests will indicate whether an individual currently is infected with the virus. Other equally important tests that indicate whether a person has had the coronavirus and successfully recovered—and is therefore protected by anti-bodies against further infection—remain elusive. A vaccine for COVID-19 likely remains many months away.

Last week, Hogan announced Maryland schools will remain closed through May 15. Most states, including Ohio, have already said they will not reopen this year.

Hogan has stressed that adequate availability testing is critical to reopening the state and the Maryland economy. He said last Friday that the state would not reopen until it at least triples daily testing capacity, greater hospital capacity is in place, adequate levels of personal protective equipment is on hand for frontline health care workers, and the state is able to deploy sufficient numbers of contact-tracing workers to track and help isolate newly infected patients.

On Saturday, at least 200 protestors in Annapolis caravanned around State Circle, demanding the governor lift restrictions on public gatherings and reopen Maryland businesses. That same morning, the capital region recorded 73 additional new deaths, pushing the number fatalities to close to 1,000 in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. Similar protests, encouraged by President Trump on Twitter, have been taking place around the country and continued Monday with more than 2,000 demonstrators at the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg.

Prince George’s and Montgomery counties lead the state in coronavirus cases, with 3,583 and 2,647 cases, respectively. Baltimore County has reported 1,875 cases and Baltimore City—1,511. African-Americans continue to make up the largest racial/ethnic group in terms of COVID-19 deaths in the state. By zip code, the area with the greatest total—269 cases of coronavirus—is in the in 21215, which includes parts of northwest Baltimore City and Baltimore County. The zip code includes the FutureCare Lochearn nursing home where at least 170 people, 129 residents and 41 staffers, have been confirmed with the virus, according to reporting from WBAL-TV.

Former Baltimore City health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, a leading public health expert, essentially agreed with Hogan last week, stating the U.S. still needs a national coordinated effort to secure personal protection equipment for healthcare workers, ramp up testing, and build public health infrastructure before it’s safe to fully reopen the economy.

“But it seems we are doing this backwards because we shouldn’t be talking about a timeline as much as we should be talking about metrics and capabilities, including the number of tests that can be made widely available [and] the public health infrastructure needed to able to identity individuals who test positive and trace their contacts,” Wen told CNN. “And the healthcare infrastructure overall to be able to treat people and not be rationing resources all the time. We are nowhere near having these capabilities in place.”

Former Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen was forced out as president of Planned Parenthood Tuesday by the organization’s board of directors over leadership and management differences.

Just last November, Wen became the second doctor to lead the organization in its now 103-year history.

In a statement posted to Twitter, Wen said yesterday she was, “leaving because the new Board Chairs and I have philosophical differences over the direction and future of Planned Parenthood.” She added that she, “will always stand with Planned Parenthood, as I continue my life’s work and mission of caring for and fighting for women, families, and communities.”

Specifically, Wen said those philosophical differences came down to her vision of expanding Planned Parenthood’s maternal health care and cancer detection efforts, as well as tackling some of the critical social determinants of health—as she did in Baltimore—including housing instability and food insecurity.

In light of new legislative limits in several states and ongoing efforts to curtail access to legal abortion in other states, plus a conservative shift in the make up of U.S. Supreme Court, Wen said she understands the board’s decision to seek a more aggressive political leader.

“The new Board leadership has determined that the priority of Planned Parenthood moving forward is to double down on abortion rights advocacy,” Wen wrote. “With the landscape changing dramatically in the last several months and the right to safe, legal abortion care under attack like never before, I understand the shift in the Board’s prioritization.”

After the announcement of her departure, Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose district includes part of Baltimore, issued a statement of support.

“Dr. Wen’s entire career has been focused on fighting for quality healthcare for women, families and children,” Cummings wrote. “I have witnessed her extraordinary leadership in public health, both nationally and in Baltimore as the Baltimore City Health Commissioner.”

Planned Parenthood said board member Alexis McGill, who previously served as the organization’s acting chair, will assume acting CEO duties while the women’s health and reproductive rights group searches for Wen’s successor.

In her Twitter statement, Wen wrote that she joined the organization “to run a national health care organization and to advocate for the broad range of public health policies that affect our patients’ health.”

A former emergency room physician, Wen took over the City Health Department in 2015 when she was appointed by then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Under Wen, the Baltimore City Health Department became a leader in public health innovation. She pushed, for example, for the free prescription access for citizens to naloxone—which reverses an opioid overdose and was named Local Health Department of the Year by the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

A Chinese immigrant, Wen was also been at the forefront of advocacy for women’s health and reproductive rights during her tenure in Baltimore, fighting against Trump Administration cuts to teen pregnancy prevention and local health care clinics. She also helped lead a legal action against the Trump Administration that alleged it intentionally and unlawfully undermines the Affordable Care Act, thereby putting thousands of Baltimoreans at risk of losing access to health care.

In a 2018 Washington Post profile Wen asserted that she is not, by nature, a politician.

“My identity, first and foremost, is always as a doctor,” she said.

“Standard medical care should not be political,” she added. “The fact that it is political means that we as Planned Parenthood need to stand up and fight for it.”

Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, who earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from UMBC and served as a resident physician at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, was announced Wednesday by Mayor Catherine Pugh as the new commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department. Dzirasa replaces Dr. Leana Wen, who resigned in September after four years at the helm to lead the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Dzirasa earned her doctorate of medicine at Meharry Medical College, a historically black institution in Nashville, where she graduated summa cum laude. She served as Fearless Solution’s health innovation officer most recently, overseeing the company’s healthcare information technology efforts and business development team. Following her residency at Hopkins, she worked as a primary care pediatrician before moving into leadership positions at the nonprofit Baltimore Medical System, which serves more than 40,000 mostly low-income clients at five locations in Greater Baltimore and is the largest federally qualified health center in the state.

“We are fortunate to have attracted a candidate of Dr. Dzirasa’s caliber and broad experience to advance our agenda to improve the health prospects of all Baltimore residents,” Pugh said in a statement. “She will bring a commitment to reducing youth violence through evidence-based approaches, as well working to eliminate health disparities that persist, even while building on our progress to address the opioid epidemic and further improve access to critical care.”

Dzirasa was selected after a national search, which attracted dozens of applications from a variety of states, according to the mayor’s office. The vetting process will continue with the City Council, which must approve the appointment. Dzirasa will be formally introduced to the council at a March 11 hearing. Assuming she is confirmed, Dzirasa will oversee nearly 800 employees and a budget of roughly $150 million. She will be the first African-American woman appointed to the led the City Health Department and earn a salary of $185,000.

In her application, which Baltimore magazine reviewed, Dzirasa wrote that her priorities, if hired, would include youth violence prevention, improving access to healthy food and addressing obesity, and tackling the city’s opioid epidemic.

Dzirasa is married to Delali Dzirasa, founder and president of Fearless Solutions, and has a 2-year-old son and 17-year-old stepson. She moved to Baltimore in 2011. “I’m one of those people who knew what they wanted to do since they were five years old,” she told Baltimore. “I have a love for science and a love for health and wellness, which became a love for public health.”

Dzirasa said she realized that the her new position has become a high-profile political job in Baltimore. Over the years, city health commissioners have become outspoken policy leaders, including Wen, who ordered on-demand naxolone prescriptions in Baltimore—as well as former department heads Dr. Peter Beilenson, who pioneered a needle-exchange program to combat the AIDS epidemic and Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, who was a frequent critic of drug industry marketing practices.

“[Political leadership] is not my focus and not my goal, which is to help Baltimore residents achieve better health outcomes, but I will always advocate for the health of all Baltimore residents,” she said.

Reducing youth violence, Dzirasa stressed, is critical because the exposure to violence at a young age is generally traumatic. That exposure is also associated with worsening health outcomes over the life of the individual, including increased risk of addiction, heart disease, and diabetes, among other issues. Addressing the asthma crisis among the city’s youth is also a priority, she said.

“I think the health department has done outstanding work and I want to make sure people at the health department feel empowered,” said Dzirasa, who believes her technology experience as well as her local medical background can be of benefit to the department. “We’ll look at everything and see where we can potentially improve even the programs that are working well. There’s always room for improvement.”