5.3 million COVID vaccines administered in Maryland, as state records lowest testing positivity rate since fall
As Maryland eclipsed 5.3 million coronavirus vaccine doses administered statewide, the state also recorded its lowest COVID-19 testing positivity rate since October, according to health department data.
Here’s a look at where some of the Maryland Department of Health’s pandemic indicators stood Tuesday:
Cases
The state recorded 399 cases one day after adding the fewest new coronavirus infections, 276, since last summer.
There have been 453,800 COVID-19 infections since health officials began to track the disease in March 2020.
Deaths
Eight more people died from the virus in Maryland, where the disease has caused 8,678 deaths throughout the pandemic.
Hospitalizations
There were 799 people still hospitalized with the coronavirus across Maryland, one more than the day before. Of those patients, 213 required intensive care.
Except for Tuesday and just two other days, the number of people hospitalized has declined since April 21, when the state reported 1,279 people hospitalized.
Testing positivity
The state’s seven-day average testing positivity rate dipped below 3% for the first time since Oct. 12, to 2.88%, down from 3.06% the day before.
The percentage, which measures the proportion of tests which detected the virus over the last week, has declined for seven days straight and is down 3 percentage points from a spring high of 5.9% recorded April 3.
Approximately 11,031 tests were reported returned Monday, fewer than the 12,544 returned Sunday.
Vaccinations
Maryland reported 43,612 new vaccinations Tuesday, with 10,499 people receiving their first of Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s two-dose vaccines and 31,967 more completing those regimens. Additionally, 1,146 single-shot immunizations made by Johnson & Johnson were administered.
Nearly 2.4 million people, almost 40% of Maryland’s population, have been fully vaccinated by completing their two-dose schedules or receiving the single-shot vaccine.
More than 5.3 million vaccine doses have been administered across the state and health officials have reported an average of 51,618 vaccinations daily over the last week.
Vaccines by age:
Almost 40% of 16- and 17-year-olds in Maryland have gotten at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the only product that’s been approved for them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently found that vaccine was safe for teens as young as 12.
About 82.5% of Marylanders 65 and older, 68% of residents between the ages of 50 and 64, and roughly 52% of those 18 to 49 years old have received at least one vaccine dose, health department data shows.
Vaccines by race:
About 2.65 times as many white people have been fully vaccinated in Maryland as Black people, despite those demographics accounting for 58.5% and 31% of the state’s population, health data shows. That proportion about a week ago was 2.7 to 1, while the difference is about 2.4 times when it comes to first doses alone.
Meanwhile, about 6.65% of the people who’ve been fully vaccinated in Maryland and whose ethnicity was known identified as Latino, up from roughly 5.8% about a week ago. Maryland’s population is about 11% Latino. About 8.4% of the first doses where ethnicity was known went to Latino people, up from 7.4% about a week ago.
Vaccines by county:
Talbot County, population 37,000, and Howard County, which has about 326,000 residents, are the only jurisdictions in the state where more than 45% of the population has been fully vaccinated. About 46.7% of the residents in Talbot, located on the Eastern Shore, and 45.9% in Howard, in the Baltimore metropolitan area, have completed their immunizations.
Somerset County remains the state’s only jurisdiction where less than a quarter of the people have been fully vaccinated. About 24% of Somerset’s 26,000 residents, about 41.5% of whom are Black, have been completely immunized. Not far ahead is Cecil County, where about 26.5% of the 103,000 people — almost 90% of whom are white — have been fully vaccinated.
Somerset also trails the rest of the state in first dose vaccination percentage, with 30.5% of its people having received a first dose. Washington and Caroline counties have seen about 31% and 31.6% of their residents fully vaccinated. With populations of about 151,000 and 33,000, both jurisdictions are more than 80% white.
More than half the people in Howard and Montgomery counties have gotten a first dose. Howard is about 55% white, while about 60% of Montgomery’s approximately 1 million residents are white.
