COVID-19 In Maryland: Over 11,000 New Cases As Positivity Rate Slides
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Maryland recorded more than 11,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday as the positivity rate continued to dip, according to the latest data from the Maryland Department of Health.
Hospitalizations rose by 10 over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of COVID-19 patients currently being treated by hospitals statewide to 3,462.
With the state reporting 11,033 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, 861,349 cases have been documented in Maryland since the outset of the pandemic.
The percentage of people testing positive is now 26.91%, a 0.7% decrease.
The latest COVID-19 metrics come as Maryland is under a state of emergency issued by Gov. Larry Hogan in response to surging cases and hospitalizations.
Of those hospitalized, 2,876 are adults in acute care settings and 559 are adults in intensive care. Another 24 are children in acute care and three 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 Wednesday, but below are the latest figures provided by the health department.
There are 4,298,737 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 10,575,815 doses of the vaccine. Of those, 4,527,604 are first doses and another 3,969,611 are second doses. The state has administered 1,749,474 booster doses.
A total of 329,126 Marylanders have gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
