COVID-19 In Maryland: Hospitalizations Approach 3,500
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Nearly 3,500 Marylanders are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to data released Tuesday by the Maryland Department of Health.
Maryland's hospitalizations rose by 88 over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of COVID-19 patients being treated by hospitals statewide to 3,452.
The state reported 9,693 new cases on Tuesday, meaning more than 850,000 cases have been confirmed in the state since the beginning of the pandemic.
The statewide positivity rate dipped to 27.62%, a 0.36% decrease.
Tuesday's figures come as Maryland is under a 30-day state of emergency issued by Gov. Larry Hogan in response to surging cases and hospitalizations.
Of those hospitalized, 2,869 are adults in acute care settings and 544 are adults in intensive care. Another 35 are children in acute care and four are in the ICU.
Hogan has attributed the surge in cases to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which he said is "now clearly the dominant variant among our state's lab-confirmed cases."
The governor said genome sequencing by the University of Maryland found that 88% of recent samples tested positive for Omicron, with that figure rising to 91% among samples taken from hospitalized patients.
In recent weeks, the state has ramped up its testing operations in an effort to keep up with public demand. That includes the opening of 20 new testing sites statewide that will be staffed by the Maryland National Guard.
Hospitals statewide have freed up beds and scaled back non-emergency procedures, with some shifting to crisis standards of care, in response to the COVID-19 surge.
Hogan issued an executive order on Jan. 4 empowering the Maryland Department of Health to regulate hospital capacity and resources, and authorizing retired, out-of-state and graduate nurses to practice here. A second order aims to beef up EMS response.
The state said vaccination data was delayed Tuesday, but below are the latest figures provided by the health department.
There are 4,294,676 Marylanders fully vaccinated and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 92.6% of the state's adults have gotten at least one dose. Among Marylanders age 5 and older, 86.5% of residents have gotten at least one does of the vaccine.
The state has administered 10,550,463 doses of the vaccine. Of those, 4,521,953 are first doses and another 3,965,695 are second doses. The state has administered 1,733,834 booster doses.
A total of 328,981 Marylanders have gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.