COVID-19 In Maryland: 6,537 New Cases, Hospitalizations Dip To 3,062
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Just over 3,000 Marylanders were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, a week after hospitalizations peaked at 3,462, according to the latest data from the Maryland Department of Health.
Hospitalizations fell by 60 over the past 24 hours, bringing the total of COVID-19 patients in Maryland to 3,062. Of those, 2,470 are adults in acute care and 555 are adults the ICU, while 29 children are in acute care and eight more are in the ICU.
The state reported 6,537 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, meaning 906.209 cases have been confirmed in Maryland since the pandemic began. The positivity rate dipped to 20.25%, a 1.66% decrease since Sunday.
With the health department reporting an additional 51 deaths, a total of 12,467 Marylanders have died of COVID-19.
Maryland is in the midst of a 30-day state of emergency issued this month by Gov. Larry Hogan in response to surging infections and hospitalizations, which pushed several hospitals to near- or at-capacity levels.
Appearing Sunday on CBS News' Face The Nation, Gov. Hogan acknowledged that hospitalizations and the positivity rate have faded over the past few days but was reluctant to say those metrics are now in a downward trend.
"We did a lot of things to try to help increase the capacity of our hospital systems—sent in 1,000 members of the National Guard," Hogan said. "We're taking a lot of actions directly and we're trying to get as much help as we can from the federal government."
Last week, the governor announced the state would distribute 20 million N95 and KN95 masks through health departments and other partners across the state.
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 opening 20 new testing sites statewide with support from the Maryland National Guard.
Hospitals statewide have freed up beds and scaled back non-emergency procedures, with 14 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. Another order shored up EMS response.
There are 4,339,390 Marylanders fully vaccinated and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 93,3% of the state's adults have gotten at least one dose. Among Marylanders age 5 and older, 87.4% of residents have gotten at least one does of the vaccine.
The state has administered 10,777,703 doses of the vaccine.
Of those, 4,572,339 are first doses, 3,277 in the last 24 hours. Another 4,008,964 are second doses, 1,537 in the past day. A total of 330,426 Marylanders have gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, 136 in the past day.
The state has administered 1,865,974 boosters, 8,588 in the past 24 hours.