As Maryland prepares to open coronavirus vaccine eligibility to more types of residents next week, the state’s daily number of new COVID-19 cases and average positive test rate continued to rise on Friday.
Maryland health officials on Friday confirmed 1,152 new cases, the third time in less than a week that the state has reported more than 1,000 daily cases.
At least 397,898 Marylanders have tested positive for COVID-19, while 3,104,182 have tested negative as of Friday morning, according to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 Case Map Dashboard.
A total of 753,517 Marylanders have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, state data showed on Friday.
Of the two-dose vaccines, Maryland has administered a total of 1,341,728 first doses and 699,817 second doses.
In the past 24 hours, providers have administered 44,920 first doses and 11,438 second doses.
Maryland providers have also administered single-dose vaccines to a total of 53,700 people, including 1,192 doses that were administered in the past 24 hours.
Starting Tuesday, Maryland will expand vaccine eligibility to Marylanders age 60 and older, Gov. Larry Hogan announced on Thursday.
Residents age 16 or older who have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19 illness will become eligible to receive a vaccine on March 30.
Marylanders age 55 or older and essential workers in some yet-to-be-covered sectors will be eligible for the vaccine on April 13.
By April 27, any resident age 16 or older will be eligible to receive a shot.
Maryland has completed 8,433,019 coronavirus tests to date, with 38,702 test results reported in the past 24 hours.
On average, 4.16% of the state’s COVID-19 tests over the last seven day period came back positive.
That average has been trending upwards for about two weeks.
The seven-day average rate of positive tests yesterday was 4.36% for Marylanders younger than 35 and 4.03% for Marylanders older than 35.
Maryland’s current coronavirus-related hospitalizations rose to 816, with 598 COVID-19 patients in acute care and 218 in intensive care.
The number of acute care patients climbed by 23 while the number of intensive care patients declined by five, marking a net increase of 18 more people hospitalized with coronavirus compared to Thursday.
To date, Maryland has hospitalized a total of 36,579 people for COVID-19.
State health officials on Friday reported that 18 more Marylanders have died from COVID-19, raising the total number of confirmed coronavirus-related fatalities in the state to 7,947. There are also 185 deaths suspected to be related to coronavirus.
As of 10 a.m. Friday, there have been 75,847 confirmed cases in Prince George’s County; 65,157 in Montgomery County; 53,282 in Baltimore County; 42,230 in Baltimore City; 37,295 in Anne Arundel County; 17,593 in Frederick County; 16,621 in Howard County; 13,187 in Harford County; 12,782 in Washington County; 9,357 in Charles County; 7,895 in Carroll County; 6,936 in Wicomico County; 6,454 in Allegany County; 5,291 in St. Mary’s County; 5,164 in Cecil County; 3,783 in Calvert County; 3,308 in Worcester County; 2,636 in Queen Anne’s County; 2,433 in Somerset County; 2,413 in Dorchester County; 2,073 in Caroline County; 1,923 in Talbot County; 1,875 in Garrett County; and 1,211 in Kent County, according to the dashboard.
Maryland has confirmed 20,184 cases in people age 9 or younger; 38,718 in people ages 10-19; 72,474 in people ages 20-29; 68,239 in people ages 30-39; 60,078 in people ages 40-49; 59,911 in people ages 50-59; 40,508 in people ages 60-69; 22,832 in people ages 70-79; and 14,954 in people age 80 or older.
The state has identified 207,872 of the confirmed COVID-19 patients as female and 190,026 as male.
Of the Marylanders who have tested positive for COVID-19, 115,952 are Black, 63,388 are Hispanic, 138,844 are white, 9,307 are Asian, 18,829 are another race, and data is not available for the remaining 51,578.
Nationwide, there have been at least 29,668,173 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, including at least 539,703 deaths. The U.S. has conducted more than 378.1 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.
