By Tim Mastro

DOVER — There have been many ups and downs on the COVID-19 roller coaster since the first case was reported in Delaware two years ago on March 11, 2020.

The lowest of all the lows was in January, Delaware Division of Public Health director Dr. Karyl Rattay said. The state was reeling from a surge spurred on by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Omicron led to records in hospitalizations, 759, and case rates, a seven-day rolling average of 3,443.4 new positive cases per day, both set on Jan. 12. The state recorded 515 COVID-19-related deaths from Thanksgiving to the final day of February.

“When we talk about our worst flu season ever, we lost 38 Delawareans, so almost 550 people, that’s a lot of Delawareans,” Dr. Rattay said. “Never in my career have I seen our hospitals near as strained as they were in January. It was an incredibly stressful and scary time for us as a state.”

The state average hit a high on Jan. 19 of 10.3 COVID-19-related deaths per day during the omicron surge. That is still behind two previous peaks — one of 13.4 deaths per day on Jan. 22, 2021, during the first winter surge when vaccine access was extremely limited and another peak of 12.6 deaths per day on April 28, 2020, during the original wave of the pandemic.

The omicron spike happened quickly. Its decline has followed a similar pattern, with Delaware’s COVID-19 statistics plummeting since the end of January.

Hospitalizations are down to 51 — the lowest mark since Aug. 2, 2021. Delaware’s seven-day rolling average of new cases has fallen to 75.6 per day.

Since so many Delawareans contracted COVID-19 during the omicron surge, many may have future protection against the virus, especially if they are up to date on their vaccines, Dr. Rattay said.

“From the few studies that have been able to look at this, it does look like any natural infections are going to add to your immune response,” Dr. Rattay said. “Now, if you only had the infection, and no doses of vaccine, your immune response is going to be very limited. So I would say you’re quite vulnerable to getting it again, maybe not as severe. But best protection, as we have seen, is to be fully up to date with your vaccinations, meaning getting boosted when eligible. For those who had gotten two shots, then got omicron, that has also led to a pretty solid immune response.

“No doubt the fact that many people were infected during the omicron surge is adding to kind of the collective immunity of our state and our country,” Dr. Rattay added. “Hopefully, that will help protect us from future surges.”