State exceeds 400K total COVID-19 cases

More than 400,000 Marylanders have contracted the coronavirus over the past year, and health officials reported more than 1,000 newly confirmed cases for the fourth consecutive day Sunday.

Here’s where the state’s coronavirus indicators stood Sunday:

Cases

Health officials reported 1,007 new cases of the coronavirus Sunday, bringing the state’s case count to 400,023 since officials started tracking the virus last year.

The state has averaged about 907 cases per day over the past two weeks, according to data from the Maryland Department of Health.

Deaths

The state reported 12 more people have died due to COVID-19 or complications from it, bringing the total number of Marylanders who have died up to 7,985 total over the past year.

As of Sunday, Maryland is averaging roughly 15 deaths per day due to the coronavirus.

Hospitalizations

There were two more people hospitalized due to the effects of COVID-19 Sunday compared with the day before, bringing the total number of people now hospitalized with the disease up to 852 Marylanders, the health department reported.

Currently, 648 people are being treated in acute care units and an additional 204 people are in intensive care units.

Vaccinations

State vaccinators administered 37,586 COVID-19 immunizations Saturday, according to the state health department, a dip compared with the previous two days as officials reported that more than 50,000 vaccines were administered Thursday and Friday.

For the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the state reported that 25,392 people received their first vaccine Saturday and that an additional 11,028 completed their two-dose regimen. An additional 1,166 people received the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the state reported.

Gov. Larry Hogan wrote on Twitter that the state has averaged 43,924 daily doses over the past week and that about 2.18 million doses of the vaccine have been administered across the state.

A total of 780,190 people, or about 12.9% of Maryland’s population, have been fully vaccinated against the disease either by completing a two-dose regimen or by receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Vaccines by age:

As the state prepares to expand vaccine eligibility to those 60 and older Tuesday, health department data shows that nearly two-thirds of Marylanders ages 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Vaccines by race:

White Marylanders have received about 63.9% of all administered vaccines as of Sunday, or a little less than 1.4 million doses, and have received about 3.18 times more vaccines than Black residents. The demographic groups account for about 58.5% and 31% of the state’s population, respectively, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Latino people have received about 4.05% of the total vaccines administered in the state, or about 88,392 doses total, according to the state health department. As of Sunday, only 28,734 Hispanic or Latino residents have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The demographic represents roughly 11% of Maryland’s population and accounts for about 18.26% of the state’s reported coronavirus cases where racial data was available. Vaccines by county:

Maryland’s smallest jurisdiction, Kent County, continues to pace its peers in its vaccination rate as more than 21% of the county’s population of about 19,000 people have been fully vaccinated against COVID19, according to state health officials.

Talbot and Worcester counties were the only other jurisdictions in the state to report that more than 19% of their populations have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus. All three Eastern Shore counties have populations where more than 27% of residents are 65 and older.

Prince George’s County, the state’s secondmost populated jurisdiction, continues to lag behind the rest of the state in its vaccination rate, reporting that only about 7.3% of its roughly 909,000 residents have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus. The majority-Black county has consistently seen the lowest rate of vaccination in Maryland over the past few months, prompting officials to call on state officials earlier this month to do a better job of distributing vaccines in an equitable way.

Charles County, another majority-Black county in Southern Maryland with roughly 163,000 residents, had the second-lowest vaccination rate in the state, with about 8.74% of residents now fully inoculated against the disease. Last week, state data showed that officials at the county’s mass vaccination site in Waldorf were administering more first doses of the vaccine to out-ofstate residents than county residents.

In Baltimore City, about 11.02% of residents have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to state health officials. For much of Maryland’s vaccination campaign, the majority-Black jurisdiction’s vaccination rates were comparable to those of Charles and Prince George’s counties but have seen an increase in recent weeks.

In Cecil County, a jurisdiction of roughly 103,000 people, with more than 88% of its population identifying as white, about 10.32% of residents have now been fully vaccinated, according to state health officials.

Somerset County, a more diverse county of about 26,000 people where about 41.5% of residents are Black, is reporting that about 10.67% of its residents are now fully inoculated.

Testing positivity

The state’s average testing positivity rate, which measures roughly the percentage of coronavirus tests returned positive over the past week, rose by 0.13 percentage points Sunday, up to 4.4%. It’s the 11th straight day Maryland has reported an increase in its positivity rate.

Kent County continues to have the highest positivity rate in the state, reporting a sevenday average of 8.25% Sunday. The county’s positivity rate jumped by nearly 3 percentage points to 8.5% on Thursday after officials reported 42 new cases that day. However, officials have reported only three cases over the past three days.

Washington County, a rural county in Western Maryland with about 151,000 people, has the second-highest rate at 6.37%.