Maryland had nearly 2,100 new cases of the coronavirus Saturday, along with 31 deaths related to the disease, according to health department data. The 2,097 additional cases brought the state’s case count to 352,726 and fatalities to 6,931.
Over the last two weeks, the number of new cases reported daily by the state have been almost steadily falling. On Jan. 9, the state reported 3,758 infections with another spike a week later, on Jan. 16, when health officials reported 3,292 cases. Since then, the daily numbers have been trending downward.
Hospital treatment of the disease also has been dropping since hitting a peak on Jan. 12, when across the state 1,952 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 infections. On Saturday, that number was down to 1,560, representing a decrease of 56 patients from the day before. The state said 380 of them required intensive care.
Just as Maryland saw its case counts and hospitalizations falling, state officials reported that a person in the Baltimore metropolitan area had contracted a variant of the coronavirus, known as the B.1.351, first detected in South Africa. It is the second variant of the virus detected in Maryland, where the novel coronavirus was first detected in early March.
Eleven months later, the state’s rate of cases stands at about 5,800 per 100,000 residents, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s significantly better than the case rate in neighboring Pennsylvania (6,440 per capita) and marginally better than the rate in Virginia (5,833 per capita).
The CDC lists Maryland deaths per capita at 117 — much better than Pennsylvania’s death rate (166) but significantly higher than Virginia’s (74). While hot spots in the state have varied from month to month, the most cases of the virus have been reported in Maryland’s most populous counties, with Prince George’s having the highest number to date, 67,583, followed by neighboring Montgomery County, with 58,710. Baltimore County accounts for the most cases of the six jurisdictions that make up the metropolitan area, with more than 47,000 cases.
Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties also lead the state in testing for the virus. On Satuday, Maryland reported conducting 48,616 coronavirus tests over the previous 24 hours. There have now been more than 6.9 million tests completed since March.
According to the state’s testing data, Maryland’s daily positivity rate hit 10.5% on Jan. 5, but has been trending downward since, reaching 5.79% by Friday, but still roughly twice as high as it had been in late October. Maryland reported conducting 48,616 coronavirus tests over the past 24 hours; there have now been 6,966,924 tests completed since March.