Maryland secures 500,000 COVID-19 test kits from S. Korea

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (64), known as “the son-in-law of South Korea,” said that the state secured 500,000 COVID-19 test kits from South Korea.

Gov. Hogan said his state owed an incredible debt to South Korean for assisting their fight against the invisible enemy in a press briefing in Annapolis on Tuesday local time. Meanwhile, Maryland’s test kit purchase from South Korea vitiated the Trump administration’s efforts to fight against the coronavirus, U.S. President Donald Trump said at the Monday briefing on the coronavirus.

Maryland, near Washington D.C., has more than 13,000 COVID-19 patients out of 6.05 million people. It tested just 70,000 people even though the number of patients has been rapidly increasing. The governor expressed his concern saying that Maryland could become the second New York. The Maryland state government expects that the test kits from South Korea would enable quicker testing. Hogan and his wife went to the airport when the test kits arrived at the airport on Saturday.

“He could have called Mike Pence and saved a lot of money,” said Trump in a press briefing at the White House on the same day, adding that some governors did not understand the policy of the federal government.


jyr0101@donga.com