Two weeks after Gov. Larry Hogan eased coronavirus-related restrictions on restaurants and other businesses, Maryland is seeing increases in the average percentage of Marylanders who are testing positive for COVID-19 and the number of residents who are hospitalized with the virus.
Maryland health officials on Friday confirmed 1,361 new coronavirus cases, increasing the state’s caseload by about 0.34%.
During the two weeks after Maryland eased its COVID-19 restrictions on March 12, the state has confirmed more than 1,000 cases for seven of the 14 days.
At least 405,343 Marylanders have tested positive for COVID-19, while 3,140,124 have tested negative as of Friday morning, according to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 Case Map Dashboard.
The number of Marylanders currently hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased for eight consecutive days, reaching 933 on Friday.
The state’s coronavirus-related hospitalizations has risen every day since March 18 when 798 patients were hospitalized due to the virus.
Of those currently hospitalized, 701 are in acute care and 232 are in intensive care.
The number of acute care patients rose by five while the number of intensive care patients grew by nine, marking a net increase of 14 more people hospitalized with coronavirus compared to Thursday.
A total of 37,254 Marylanders have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 to date.
Maryland has completed 8,633,225 coronavirus tests to date, with 42,311 test results reported in the past 24 hours.
On average, 4.64% of the state’s COVID-19 tests over the last seven days have come back positive.
The seven-day average has been following an upward trend since early March, when it sat at 3.26% on March 3.
Yesterday, the seven-day average was 4.93% for Marylanders younger than 35 and 4.42% for Marylanders older than 35.
Maryland officials on Friday reported 15 more COVID-19 deaths, raising the state’s total number of coronavirus-related fatalities to 8,047. There are also 185 deaths suspected to be related to coronavirus.
Of the two-dose vaccines, Maryland has administered a total of 1,568,466 first doses and 791,320 second doses.
In the past 24 hours, providers have administered 42,340 first doses and 19,378 second doses.
Maryland providers have also administered single-dose vaccines to a total of 63,177 people, including 2,568 doses that were administered in the past 24 hours.
A total of 854,497 Marylanders have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, state data showed on Friday.
As of 10 a.m. Friday, there have been 77,153 confirmed cases in Prince George’s County; 66,113 in Montgomery County; 54,740 in Baltimore County; 43,578 in Baltimore City; 38,308 in Anne Arundel County; 17,961 in Frederick County; 16,959 in Howard County; 13,634 in Harford County; 13,046 in Washington County; 9,596 in Charles County; 8,098 in Carroll County; 7,039 in Wicomico County; 6,478 in Allegany County; 5,378 in St. Mary’s County; 5,289 in Cecil County; 3,869 in Calvert County; 3,342 in Worcester County; 2,687 in Queen Anne’s County; 2,468 in Somerset County; 2,455 in Dorchester County; 2,099 in Caroline County; 1,944 in Talbot County; 1,894 in Garrett County; and 1,215 in Kent County, according to the dashboard.
Of Maryland’s confirmed cases, 20,777 are people age 9 or younger; 39,696 are people ages 10-19; 74,022 are people ages 20-29; 69,448 are people ages 30-39; 61,089 are people ages 40-49; 60,963 are people ages 50-59; 41,166 are people ages 60-69; 23,100 are people ages 70-79; and 15,082 are people age 80 or older.
Maryland has identified 211,772 of the confirmed COVID-19 patients as female and 193,571 as male.
Of the Marylanders who have tested positive for COVID-19, 118,957 are Black, 64,098 are Hispanic, 141,793 are white, 9,529 are Asian, 19,150 are another race, and data is not available for the remaining 51,816.
Nationwide, there have been at least 30,081,432 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, including at least 546,830 deaths. The U.S. has conducted more than 384.5 million coronavirus tests to date as of 10 a.m. Friday, according to a real-time dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
