Every jurisdiction in Maryland has seen the rate of positive COVID-19 tests drop below 10 percent for the first time, state data show.
Maryland has conducted at least 492,305 coronavirus tests to date, with 8,486 of those test results reported in the past 24 hours.
Over the past seven days, an average of 6.55 percent of tests in Maryland came back positive for COVID-19. Public health experts recommend a positive test rate of 10 percent or lower.
As of Monday, all jurisdictions have an average rate of positive tests below that 10 percent guideline.
Prince George’s County, the hardest hit jurisdiction during the pandemic, saw its average rate of positive tests dip below 10 percent for the first time on Monday, making it the last jurisdiction to meet that benchmark.
Montgomery County, the jurisdiction with the second highest number of caes, average rate of positive tests fell below 10 percent last week.
Both counties have had consistently higher positivity rates than the rest of Maryland’s jurisdictions. Montgomery County peaked at 32.68 percent tests being positive on April 20, while Prince George’s County peaked at 41.97 percent on May 2.
By comparison, the highest statewide average rate of positive tests was 26.92 on April 17.
Maryland’s average rate of positive tests has decreased for four consecutive days since reaching 7.25 percent on June 10, and the metric has been trending downward for about two months.
Last week, Maryland reported an average of 9,292 per day. That’s down nearly 2,000 tests, from the average of 11,202 tests per day during the previous week, May 31 to June 6.
But Maryland’s average number of tests per day has mostly followed an upward trend since the beginning of the pandemic.
For the week of March 29 to April 4, health officials reported an average of 2,598 test results per day.
During the first week of May, Maryland reached an average 6,333 per day, and by the end of the month, the figure surpassed 10,000.
At least 62,032 Marylanders have tested positive for COVID-19, while 359,076 have tested negative as of Monday morning, according to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 Case Map Dashboard.
Of the state’s total number of confirmed cases, 10,222 people who tested positive for COVID-19 were hospitalized at some point, including 745 who are currently hospitalized.
Maryland’s coronavirus-related hospitalizations have decreased for 19 consecutive days since reaching 1,338 on May 27, and the metric has trended downward for more than a month.
Of those currently hospitalized, 453 are in acute care and 292 are in intensive care.
The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units has decreased for 13 consecutive days since reaching 481 on June 2, and the metric has been following a downward trend for one month.
A total of 2,817 Marylanders have died from COVID-19, with 6 additional deaths since Sunday. There are also 130 deaths suspected to be related to coronavirus.
As of 10 a.m. Monday, there have been 17,326 confirmed cases in Prince George’s County; 13,607 in Montgomery County; 7,151 in Baltimore County; 6,689 in Baltimore City; 4,607 in Anne Arundel County; 2,335 in Howard County; 2,273 in Frederick County; 1,269 in Charles County; 1,020 in Wicomico County; 1,009 in Harford County; 989 in Carroll County; 580 in St. Mary’s County; 571 in Washington County; 443 in Cecil County; 375 in Calvert County; 283 in Caroline County; 256 in Worcester County; 193 in Kent County; 187 in Allegany County; 180 in Queen Anne’s County; 162 in Dorchester County; 107 in Talbot County; 79 in Somerset County; and 10 in Garrett County, according to the dashboard.
Of Maryland’s confirmed cases, 1,759 have been people age 9 or younger; 3,018 have been people ages 10-19; 8,856 have been people ages 20-29; 11,577 have been people ages 30-39; 11,111 have been people ages 40-49; 9,841 have been people ages 50-59; 7,094 have been people ages 60-69; 4,521 have been people ages 70-79; and 4,255 have been people age 80 or older.
Maryland has identified 32,241 of the confirmed COVID-19 patients as female and 29,791 as male.
Of the Marylanders who have tested positive for COVID-19, 17,767 have been black, 16,834 have been Hispanic, 12,069 have been white, 1,205 have been Asian, 3,149 have been another race, and data is not available for the remaining 11,008.
Nationwide, there have been at least 2,094,205 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, including at least 115,732 deaths and 561,816 recoveries. More than 23.5 million people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19 as of 10 a.m. Monday, according to a real-time dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
