The number of hospitalizations should determine whether a stay-at-home order remains in place, Rep. Andy Harris, D-Md. told Newsmax TV.
"The fact of the matter is we've learned about COVID, and now that we have more testing, I'm not even going to look at the number of cases," Harris said Friday during an appearance on "Spicer & Co."
"The key is the number of hospitalizations because all this government shutdown was to prevent overload of our health care system. So the only metric we should be looking at are hospitalizations."
Harris added: "We take high-risk people, and we keep them at home. But people who are at lower risk, in lower-risk jobs, in lower-risk business environments, let them get back to work."
The representative talked about how coronavirus cases are going down or have peaked in states such as New York, Louisiana and Maryland. He said state with dwindling coronavirus cases should strongly consider lifting their stay-at-home orders.
"Talking about Maryland as one unit is just as wrong as talking about the United States as one unit. There are areas within Maryland, part of the areas that I represent, with very low numbers of cases, where the health system is not stressed, where I think we should reopen now."
Harris, who is also a physician, still stressed the need for practice good hygiene in public by continuing to practice caution and common sense health measures.
"One of the most amazing things we're finding out is there are large amount of people who are completely asymptomatic, who get this virus, they have no symptoms, they recover, they develop antibiotics and they don't get it again," Harris said. "If you wear a mask, you won't spread it to anybody else. So it makes common sense. Until we get this under control, everyone should wear a mask outside.
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