“And I think that’s where it’s incumbent on leaders and health care providers and folks in the community to really emphasize the importance of individuals getting vaccinated with the latest booster,” he said. or Maryland are interested in getting the newly approved updated vaccine. It’s not clear how many people in the U.S. population received the updated booster that was released last year. population got the first COVID vaccine, but the vaccination rate dropped to 69.5% for the completed primary COVID shot series. “We’re hoping it will be a fairly quiet season, but this is where everyone in public health is still watching closely and holding our breath.”īut because cases of respiratory illnesses such as COVID tend to increase in colder months, federal, as well as state, health officials are recommending that most people get the updated COVID vaccine.ĬDC numbers show an overall reduced appetite for continuing to get regular COVID shots. “At least in the current direction we’re going, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get that extreme, fortunately. That said, the state has not reported a daily COVID-death count of 10 or more since early February. Occasionally, six to seven COVID-related deaths were reported in one day. The number of daily COVID deaths usually ranged from zero to four over the past several weeks. “But that number remains below the surge the nation saw in summer 2022, when hospitalizations climbed to more than 40,000,” the department noted.ĭeaths as a result of COVID have been fairly steady in Maryland in recent weeks, according to the department’s updates. 26, according to the latest data from the CDC.” Nationally hospitalizations for COVID “have increased for seven straight weeks, and rose more than 15% to 17,418 for the week ending Aug. “It is not unusual to see upticks as individuals travel and take vacations,” the Maryland Department of Health said in a written statement. Hospitalizations for COVID are also on an upward swing, according to the Department of Health’s website, with an average of 230 patients hospitalized each day. But then cases started rising, and the most recent data show there were over 2,300 cases of COVID-19 last week. Maryland Matters has been tracking the state health department’s regular COVID updates, and the number of COVID cases and hospitalizations has been on a steady upward swing for a few weeks, matching a similar trend across the United States.įrom early January to mid-June, COVID cases were decreasing in Maryland, from over 1,000 cases a day in the first week of 2023 to as few as 25 reported cases on June 19. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended that most Americans over the age of six months old should get a newly approved COVID-19 booster in order to combat the recent, more-transmissible variant of the virus, States Newsroom reported Tuesday. “There are still people getting sick, but one can protect themselves from ending up in the hospital by getting vaccinated and boosted with the latest booster…so that they can ensure that they have the highest level of protection available for themselves - especially going into the fall and winter seasons where we know respiratory illnesses typically go up,” he said. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard), who is a public health physician. “COVID is still present, but we have a much better ability to protect our population from it,” according to Sen. The department also recommends staying home from work and school when you’re sick and “wearing a mask when appropriate.” Instead they urge Marylanders to get an updated vaccine and focus on “general health hygiene,” which includes washing hands and covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing. ![]() Maryland Department of Health officials said they are staying cautious and tracking rising numbers, but currently there are not plans to recommend additional social distancing and mask measures. With all these factors at play, how concerned should Marylanders be about COVID-19 heading into fall and winter when respiratory viruses usually spread quickly? Yet the number of COVID hospitalizations are increasing in Maryland and nationally, though not nearly to the extent seen in previous pandemic years. Social distancing and masking now are largely voluntary measures. The Maryland Department of Health, in May, moved away from daily COVID updates to weekly updates. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.Īs we approach yet another winter since the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed in the United States in January 2020, the landscape of what has been a deadly virus looks vastly different.įederal health officials approved another iteration of the COVID vaccine this week to protect against the newest strains of the virus.
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