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.”

Besides all the members of team USA, we will have someone extra special to root for in the Winter Olympics this year. The games, which kick off on February 9 in PyeongChang, South Korea, will include University of Maryland student and speedskater Thomas Hong of Laurel.

Hong, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, will be traveling back to his home country as the youngest male short-track speedskater on team USA. The 20-year-old finance student is no stranger to competitive speedskating. He’s competed in four World Championships, as well as the 2012 winter youth Olympic games, where he won a gold medal as part of the 3,000-meter-relay team.

As sports fans gear up for the opening ceremonies this week, here are a few things to know about Hong, the Olympiad.

His love for skating began really early.
Hong was a natural on ice skates by the time he was 4. Although, if we want to get technical, his mother went into labor at an ice rink during his sister’s speedskating practice in South Korea. It’s safe to say he couldn’t wait to hit the ice.

Now, after an unsuccessful try at the 2014 Sochi winter games, he is geared up to compete in his first Olympics. After putting his studies on hold after his freshman year to focus on his sport full-time, he moved to Utah to train with the U.S. national team.

“This is something he has been working towards his whole life,” said his girlfriend, Jenna Hong. “He has so much passion for the sport. Just knowing how far he’s come is unbelievable.”

He’s a perfectionist.
Short-track speedskaters can reach speeds topping 30 mph, but Hong is always trying to find ways to shave time and go faster.

“I use video as a tool to not only engage how I’m doing, but also how my teammates and my competitors are doing to understand their tendencies,” Hong said to UMD’s The Diamondback. “In a sense, by watching a lot of film, I study the sport and try to apply it to myself.”

Even his coaches can speak to his dedication. When he’s not on the ice practicing, he’s studying. After each practice, the coaches upload the film for the athletes to go over.

“Thomas studies video more than probably anyone I can think of,” said Anthony Barthell, the U.S. short-track coach, to The Washington Post. “If he can sit down and look at videos 24-7, he would be in front of a TV or laptop just watching videos.”

He has other talents besides skating really fast.
Hong loves to cook and actually took culinary courses while attending Atholton High School in Columbia.

“He looks forward to cooking for me every time I come to visit him in Utah,” Jenna said. “He makes a really good chicken Parmesan, but he loves breakfast food. He eats it all the time.”

He also played the French horn, piano, and drums as a kid—and is fluent in Korean (naturally). He’s also an avid reader, according to his girlfriend, who said he reads every night before bed.

He binge-watches TV just like us.
Between classes, practice, and studying film, he likes to binge on Parks and Recreation and The Office.

He also happens to really like hip-hop, specifically Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar—maybe the latter is where he gets his motivation to stay humble.

“He would never bring up skating in conversation,” Jenna said. “He never makes anyone feel like what they have going on isn’t important. He’s really humble—it’s my favorite thing about him.”

“I cannot see you and I cannot see the sculpture,” blind South Korean balloon artist HongSeok Goh told the crowd gathered at the American Visionary Art Museum hours after he recently completed a massive, four days-long balloon installation—more than 20 feet long and 15 feet tall—inside the museum’s warehouse barn. “But it makes my heart pump harder.”

Making his first installation in the U.S., Goh said that his work was inspired by AVAM’s current mega exhibition, The Great Mystery Show. He described his piece as a metaphor for the universe, envisioning and building a bold, enormous elephant standing over a sprawling tortoise. The vastness of the universe is represented by the immense elephant, Goh explained, and the passage of time by the slow-moving, imperturbable turtle.

The four colors of the legs of the elephant—red, blue, white, and black—highlight the colors of his country’s flag. A dragon’s head and gaping mouth perched at the end of its trunk symbolizes the human imagination.

Goh arrived in Baltimore with his wife and a small team of assistants, whom he calls his “Korean Balloon Avengers,” courtesy of a South Korean grant. They went an extra mile or two to keep the sculpture up for several weeks, literally inflating a balloon inside each balloon, adding a sealant as well. Goh said through an interpreter that he slept just two to three hours a night to complete the project .

One reason he likes to make balloon sculptures, Goh says, is that his works are inevitably temporary, and the process of inflating air into something beautiful that slowly fades away signifies “the ephemeral life of all things and the greater cycle of Nature.” Another reason is that his pieces make the air that surrounds people—which they cannot see, as he cannot see—suddenly visible.

Goh was also helped by Los Angeles-based balloon artist Addi Somekh, who has been twisting balloons for 26 years. “This is not normal ballooning,” Somekh said. “He’s had to invent new ways of doing things out of necessity and it is incredibly precise and sophisticated. And make no mistake, he is doing the work and directing us,” Somekh added. “He goes from the intricate work of the dragon’s head to the rear of the elephant and knows just where everything is. It is not like he’s partially sighted, either. I’ve seen him ask his wife a question and watch her make a few lines in the palm of his hand, but that’s it.”

As a teenager, Goh contracted a virus that began to destroy the optical nerves in his eyes. Now 46, he has been blind for almost 25 years. As a young man, he described himself as athletic, an avid baseball player, soccer player, and cyclist with no artistic training or interest. “I began to twist balloons when I was 28, so I could have a job to do for the rest of my life.”

The installation is expected to remain up this week and next inside AVAM’s Anita Roddick Tall Sculpture Barn.