Maryland Coronavirus Cases Spiking
Image: NYTimes
Ben Leonard of the Baltimore Sun reports how Maryland reported 962 new coronavirus cases Thursday — the most new daily cases since Aug. 1 — and 11 deaths tied to COVID-19, the disease the virus causes. Maryland Covid-19 Cases are indeed spiking.
Hospitalizations
Thursday’s reported 502 current hospitalizations set a new high in active hospitalizations since early August for the second straight day, rising by one. The state has seen a steady increase in hospitalizations since late September, when there was a low of 281 people hospitalized.
Among those hospitalized, 120 had virus complications requiring intensive care, up six from Wednesday.
The state’s ICU hospitalizations have grown significantly since Sept. 20, when 68 people required ICU care. Wednesday marked the 17th consecutive day at least 100 people required intensive care.
Maryland Coronavirus Cases
The new data brought the state to a total of 143,387 coronavirus cases and 3,980 deaths since the pandemic took hold in Maryland in March. The state has seen the 15th most deaths and the 31st most cases per capita among states, according to data from Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource center.
Cases are rising across the country and in Maryland, as 44 states and Washington, D.C. are seeing increases in virus cases in the past week, with zero seeing decreases, according to Hopkins’ data as of Tuesday. Just six states have seen cases stay essentially flat in the past week as of Tuesday, according to Hopkins.
The two-week average of new daily cases in Maryland has spiked this month, growing from 488 Sept. 30 to 679 as of Wednesday. Nationwide, the seven-day new case average has spiked from 51,161 to 71,832 in the past two weeks.
The state’s seven-day rolling testing positivity rate was 3.52% Thursday, up from 3.36% Wednesday. Hopkins’ figure was not updated from Tuesday’s data, leaving it at 2.64%. Hopkins’ data provider recently changed its calculation, which significantly cut the value for the metric it reported.
The daily person-centered positivity rate, which is how Hopkins measured its positivity rate before changing its calculation, was 8.70% on Wednesday, according to data compiled by mSightly.The seven-day average of that figure was 7.02% as of Wednesday, a statistic that has been rising.
