Most are the Delta variant.
Frederick, Md (KM) For the past two months, Frederick County and the rest of Maryland were making progress in battling the COVID-19 virus. County Executive Jan Gardner says every county was in the Green Zone determined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means low risk for transmission, and daily cases were in the single digits.
But Things have changed. “So over the past two weeks, we’ve seen a concerning trend,”: said Gardner during her public information briefing. . “The number of new cases last week was more than double the week before. And we’re now in the Yellow Zone for moderate rate of transmission as is the entire state of Maryland. And we are now double-digit number of cases per day’
“Now, I will say the number of new cases remain relatively low,” Gardner continues. “So for the week of July 4th, we had 17 new cases. For the following week of July 11th, we had 34 new cases. For the week of 7-18, we 75 new cases. And so far this week, we’ve had 54 new cases. So we’re likely to have over 100 new cases this week.”
Gardner also said hospitalizations have gone up slightly with 18 new cases, and four people at Frederick Health Hospital with COVID.
She said the dominant strain in many of these instances is the Delta variant which is more contagious. “The Delta variant has changed things up. And we can confirm through the Health Department that the Delta is the predominant variant through testing that we’re seeing now in Frederick County,” Gardner says.
Many of those individuals coming down with COVID have not been vaccinated. Gardner urges anyone who has not received their shots to do so. “And the good news for everyone is that the vaccines have demonstrated that they do work and they work well,” she says. “And that the vaccines are safe, and are certainly widely available in our community.” Anyone who wants the vaccine can contact the Frederick County Health Department, their primary care physician or local pharmacies.
The Frederick County Joint Information Center says as of Thursday, 58.4% of local residents have been fully vaccinated, and that includes 6.2% of those individuals who received the single-shot dose from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Since the pandemic began, there have been more than 20,032 cases of the coronavirus in Frederick County, according to the Joint Information Center. That’s 18 more than the day before. 335 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported, including three in the month of July. . Over the past four weeks, the county’s seven-day positivity rate is 2.97%. The seven-day case rate stands at 4.95 per 100,000 residents.
By Kevin Mcmanus
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