This story was updated at 5:50 p.m. April 1, 2020, to include news about additional deaths announced Wednesday by the state health department and at 6:10 p.m. to include an explanation from Montgomery County about a death it announced on Wednesday.
State and official health officials reported on Wednesday that four more Montgomery County residents have died from coronavirus, for a total of five since the first cases were reported in Maryland in early March.
On Wednesday afternoon, the county’s health department reported that a Montgomery County man in his 60s died from coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, on Friday after being hospitalized.
He was the second person in the county reported to have died from the virus.
Later Wednesday afternoon, the state health department released details of 13 coronavirus deaths mentioned earlier in the day. Three of those 13 victims were from Montgomery County; a man in his 70s, another man in his 70s and a man older than 80.
Wednesday morning, the state health department reported that Maryland’s death count from coronavirus had increased from 18 to 31, but did not release details about any of the additional 13 victims until later in the day.
The Montgomery County man in his 60s — who was not one of the 13 new victims — was admitted to the hospital on Friday after experiencing symptoms from the virus, according to a county press release on Wednesday. He died several hours later.
County officials wrote that the man got the virus from community transmission, and not travel or another known case.
Dr. Travis Gayles, the county’s health officer, said in the press release that the man’s death was tragic and the county’s thoughts are with the family.
“Unfortunately, with the virulence of this disease, we may see additional deaths before we see the end of this pandemic locally,” he said.
Mary Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview that the county only found out about the man’s death on Wednesday, then shared details.
Anderson said that the county gets its data on COVID-19 positive tests and deaths from a national database called National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS). The database, she said, collects results from various labs.
The Health and Human Services staff, Anderson said, checks the database daily. It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that information about the man who died on Friday showed up in the system.
Last month, a Montgomery woman in her 40s with an underlying health condition died from COVID-19.
As of Wednesday morning, 447 people in Montgomery County had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the state Department of Health.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media
For other Bethesda Beat coverage of the coronavirus, click here.
To see a timeline of major coronavirus developments in Maryland and Montgomery County, click here.
