Over the past seven days, an average of 9.5 percent of coronavirus tests in Maryland have come back positive, putting the state in line with a testing benchmark set by health experts for the first time.
The statewide rate of positive tests has decreased for six consecutive days since reaching 12.8 percent on May 26, and has been trending downward for about a month and a half, state data show.
During that month and a half of declines, Maryland continued to ramp up its testing capabilities.
On March 29, the earliest date the state has data for the rate of testing over a seven-day period, 11.3 percent came back positive. Officials reported 1,585 test results that day.
The average number of test results per day has increased nearly every week since then.
For the week of March 29 to April 4, health officials reported an average of 2,598 test results per day. The following week, the state was averaging close to 1,000 more tests 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.
In that same period, the rate of positive results started to decline. On the week of April 12 to April 18, as many as 26.92 percent of tests came back positive. By mid-May, the rate dipped below 20 percent, and continued to decline toward 10 percent over the next couple weeks.
Public health experts recommend a positive test rate of 10 percent or lower, in part because it symbolizes the state is conducting enough tests to measure the full spread of the virus.
On Wednesday, Maryland’s seven-day rate of positive tests fell below 10 percent for the first time, after reaching 10.5 percent the day before.
At least 54,982 Marylanders have tested positive for COVID-19, while 272,643 have tested negative as of Wednesday morning, according to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 Case Map Dashboard.
The state’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 848, an increase of about 1.5 percent.
Maryland has conducted at least 380,716 coronavirus tests as of Wednesday, with 14,385 of those results reported in the past 24 hours.
As of Wednesday, almost every jurisdiction in Maryland has a rate of positive tests below that guidelines from health experts. Kent, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties remain above that mark.
Of the state’s total number of confirmed cases, 9,111 people who tested positive for COVID-19 were hospitalized at some point, including 1,109 who are currently hospitalized.
Maryland’s coronavirus-related hospitalizations decreased for the seventh consecutive day since reaching 1,338 on May 27.
Of those currently hospitalized, 638 are in acute care and 471 are in intensive care.
A total of 2,519 Marylanders have died from COVID-19, with 43 additional deaths since Tuesday. There are also 122 deaths suspected to be related to coronavirus.
Among nursing homes, assisted living facilities and group homes in Maryland, there have been at least 6,699 resident cases, 1,365 resident deaths, 3,240 staff cases and 18 staff deaths.
In the past week, at least 305 additional residents and 319 additional staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 89 more residents and four more staff members have died from coronavirus, according to the dashboard’s congregate living section, which is updated every Wednesday.
As of 10 a.m. Wednesday, there have been 15,553 confirmed cases in Prince George’s County; 11,731 in Montgomery County; 6,385 in Baltimore County; 5,688 in Baltimore City; 3,924 in Anne Arundel County; 1,975 in Howard County; 1,961 in Frederick County; 1,133 in Charles County; 955 in Wicomico County; 927 in Carroll County; 891 in Harford County; 518 in St. Mary’s County; 480 in Washington County; 377 in Cecil County; 352 in Calvert County; 263 in Caroline County; 217 in Worcester County; 181 in Allegany County; 174 in Kent County; 161 in Queen Anne’s County; 144 in Dorchester County; 101 in Talbot County; 74 in Somerset County; and 10 in Garrett County, according to the dashboard.
Of Maryland’s confirmed cases, 1,393 have been people age 9 or younger; 2,473 have been people ages 10-19; 7,621 have been people ages 20-29; 10,225 have been people ages 30-39; 9,868 have been people ages 40-49; 8,879 have been people ages 50-59; 6,461 have been people ages 60-69; 4,134 have been people ages 70-79; and 3,928 have been people age 80 or older.
Maryland has identified 28,654 of the confirmed COVID-19 patients as female and 26,328 as male.
Of the Marylanders who have tested positive for COVID-19, 15,856 have been black, 14,155 have been Hispanic, 10,757 have been white, 1,048 have been Asian, 2,765 have been another race, and data is not available for the remaining 10,401 people.
Nationwide, there have been at least 1,832,412 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, including at least 106,198 deaths and 463,868 recoveries. More than 17.7 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the U.S. as of 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to a real-time dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
