Anne Arundel adds 156 new coronavirus cases, two deaths

Anne Arundel County confirmed 156 new coronavirus cases and two new deaths Sunday, according to data from the Maryland Department of Health. The state confirmed 1,483 new coronavirus cases and 11 deaths.

Numbers released Sunday morning show the county has reached 40,427 confirmed cases and 562 deaths since March 2020. Another 14 county residents may have died from the virus, but a lab test was never performed. Maryland now has 426,730 confirmed cases and 8,269 deaths.

Anne Arundel’s seven-day average rate of positive cases is 7.43%, higher than the state’s 5.41%. The seven-day average case rate per 100,000 people is about 23.28 for the county. The case rate is a metric of infections per 100,000 people, averaged over seven days, to judge how quickly and widely the virus is spreading in the county.

Statewide, 1,240 people are currently hospitalized with 279 patients in the ICU and 961 patients in acute care.

As of Saturday, the Maryland Department of Health had administered 2,044,726 first doses of coronavirus vaccines and 1,183,227 second doses. There have also been 141,693 residents who have received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The state is currently in Phase 2B of its vaccination plan.

The county is now vaccinating people in Phase 2B, which includes people ages 16 and older who have disabilities or underlying medical conditions that increase the risk of severe COVID-19 illness.

The county will continue vaccinating people covered under all previous phases, including everyone older than 60 and various essential workers.

Phase 2C, which includes everyone 55 and older as well as essential workers, will begin Monday in the county. Everyone not covered in a previous category will also be eligible for the vaccine starting Monday, according to the county government’s website.

The first state-run mass vaccination site in the county will open Thursday at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis. The Annapolis location is a walk-up site and will accept people with or without an appointment, but an appointment will ensure a visitor can get a vaccine. On-site staff will greet, then screen patients before pointing them toward the vaccination station. Patients will proceed to an observation area after receiving the vaccine, where they’ll wait for 15 minutes before leaving.

To sign up for vaccination, go to aacounty. org/covidvax.

The county’s hospitalization rate and cases by ZIP code are not updated on Sundays.