State marks new vaccine milestone

Maryland health officials reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus infections Saturday, the first time in almost a month the number of daily cases hit four figures, while marking a new 24-hour milestone in its vaccination campaign.

Here are where the other key metrics stood Saturday morning.

Cases

Maryland reported 1,101 new coronavirus infections Saturday, the first time since Feb. 19 the state has eclipsed the 1,000-case mark. It’s the most daily infections reported in a month.

The state has averaged 808 cases daily over the last 14 days. Some 392,581 residents have contracted the virus since officials began to track its effects in March 2020.

Deaths

Eight more Maryland residents were reported dead from COVID-19, bringing to 7,856 the disease’s death toll over the last year.

The state has averaged 13 deaths daily from the disease over the last two weeks.

Hospitalizations

Some 773 people remained in hospitals across the state Saturday facing the disease’s effects, eight more hospitalizations than the day before. Of those, 196 required intensive care, one more than Friday.

More than 36,000 people have been hospitalized with the coronavirus in Maryland since the health department began reporting the data.

Vaccinations

Vaccinators across the state shot immunizations into the arms of 56,320 people over the last 24 hours, a new daily milestone for the state, according to health department data. On average, 42,376 people have received shots daily over the last seven days.

The daily totals mean 672,463 people have been fully vaccinated in Maryland, either by completing the two-dose regiment offered by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna or the single-shot immunization made by Johnson & Johnson. That means about 11.1% of the state’s population has been completely inoculated against COVID-19.

Some 1,165,227 have received at least one dose of the two-shot immunizations. That’s about 19.3% of the state’s population. Vaccines by age:

About 58% of Maryland residents 65 and older have gotten at least partially immunized against COVID-19, according to the health department. About 61% of those 65 and older in the United States have received a dose of the vaccine, while roughly 32% have been fully immunized.

Vaccines by race and ethnicity:

White people have gotten 3.4 times as many vaccine doses as Black people. About 58.5% of Maryland residents are white, while about 31% are Black.

Latino residents, who make up about 11% of the state’s population, have received about 4% of the doses for which the recipients ethnicity was known.

Vaccines by county:

Prince George’s County continues to lag behind the rest of the jurisdictions in the state in vaccinations, with about 6.1% of its population having been fully inoculated. Not far ahead is neighboring Charles County, with 7.3% of its population completely vaccinated. Both counties are majority Black. So too is Baltimore City, which had the fourth-smallest proportion of its residents entirely immunized: 9.6%.

About 9.1% of Cecil County’s population has been fully vaccinated. Neighboring Kent County, the least-populous jurisdiction in the state, has completely immunized the biggest proportion of its roughly 19,000 residents: 17.9%. It’s not far ahead of Worcester and Talbot counties, which are likewise located on the Eastern Shore.

Positivity Rate

For the third day in a row, Maryland’s rate of positive tests increased slightly. On Saturday, the health department reported the rate was 3.72%, 0.12 percentage points higher than the day before.

Variants

Maryland had, as of Thursday, identified 201 COVID-19 cases caused by more contagious variants of the coronavirus, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cases caused by variants first detected in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil have been discovered by laboratory genome tests in Maryland. Roughly three months after the first case was identified, there have been 183 infections caused by the variant first discovered in the U.K. It’s expected to become the dominant strain in the United States soon, with scientists saying it’s likely more fatal than the first strain of the coronavirus.

There has been just one case of the strain first found in Brazil, while labs have discovered 17 cases caused by the virus mutation initially identified in South Africa.