Maryland, Virgina and District coordinating virus response

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Long linked by proximity and the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who live and work in their jurisdictions, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are now connected by the growing numbers of coronavirus cases they are battling.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser spoke in a conference call Friday to discuss coordinating virus response efforts. Hogan said the three officials have frequently spoken over the past month. Hogan also noted that their staffs are in daily contact.

“While we may have individual differences about how we’re going after different things, the sharing of information, the willingness to try to cooperate on things that are of importance to the region has been terrific, and it has been throughout the crisis, and I think it's going to continue," Hogan said Friday after the call.

Hogan noted that this was the deadliest week yet in the region in and around the nation's capital. He said the area has had more than 21,000 cases of coronavirus and 818 deaths.

As states review guidelines from the White House aimed at easing restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, cases in areas near the capital are “going up rather than down,” said Hogan, who is the chairman of the National Governors Association.

“We’re all in some part of a phase of talking about the gradual reopening but not able to start that quite yet, and we all are in agreement that we want to do that in a way that’s cooperative," said Hogan, a Republican. "We understand that while each area is unique that there are certainly things that we have to do together as a region.”

Northam, a Democrat, said at a news conference Friday that Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and the District would “do everything...