January isn’t over yet, but it is already Maryland’s deadliest month on record during the coronavirus pandemic, state data show.
The Baltimore Sun reported that COVID-19 deaths in Maryland – both on the day they were reported and the day they actually occurred – have reached new record highs this month.
State health officials have reported the deaths of more than 1,500 Marylanders in January.
The previous monthly record for COVID-19 deaths in Maryland was 1,364 deaths in May 2021, according to the Sun.
A total of 13,131 Marylanders are confirmed to have died from COVID-19 to date. There are also 256 Marylanders whose deaths are suspected to be related to the coronavirus.
Last Friday, the state’s COVID-19 death toll stood at 12,751 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths and 252 suspected coronavirus-related deaths.
Maryland, like many states, saw an uptick across many COVID-19 metrics this month amid the omicron surge.
Among them, the state set a new record number of newly reported COVID-19 cases on Jan. 9 with 17,252 cases confirmed that day.
Since reaching that peak, the daily case rate has fallen.
Maryland health officials confirmed 3,011 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, totaling 949,880 cases to date.
The state has confirmed 22,783 cases since last Friday.
Maryland’s seven-day average positivity rate currently sits at 10.93%, down from an average positive test rate of 17.14% a week ago.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Maryland peaked at 3,462 on Jan. 11.
Like other metrics, hospitalizations have also declined. But with 1,979 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in Maryland as of Friday, hospitalizations remain slightly higher than the previous record before the omicron surge: 1,952 hospitalizations on Jan. 11, 2021.
There were 2,745 Marylanders hospitalized with COVID-19 this time last week.
Among the initial doses of coronavirus vaccines, the state administered 4,049,070 second doses of a two-dose vaccine (66.975% of Maryland’s population) and 331,882 single-dose vaccines (5.49%).
A total of 1,996,654 booster shots have been administered to date.
