Delaware at ‘substantial’ level for new COVID cases

By Tim Mastro
Posted 8/2/21

DOVER — All three of Delaware’s counties have reached “substantial” rates of COVID-19 transmission, according to data from the U.S. …

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Delaware at ‘substantial’ level for new COVID cases

Posted

DOVER — All three of Delaware’s counties have reached “substantial” rates of COVID-19 transmission, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The substantial rate of transmission is the second-highest on the CDC’s scale, trailing just “high.” The CDC recommends vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals wear masks in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission, per guidance issued last week.

The CDC’s criteria looks at the seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests and the new case rate per 100,000 people.

As a state, Delaware’s percent-positive rate is at 3.9% over the last seven days, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health. This is the largest it has been since May 13. The seven-day rolling average was as low as 0.9% on June 7.

Kent County and Sussex County both have seven-day rolling averages of 4.8% for percentage of positives tests, just below the World Health Organization’s recommended mark of 5%. New Castle County’s percent-positive rate is 3.5%.

All data related to the percentage of positive tests is as of Friday at 6 p.m. due to a two-day lag to account for the time delay between the date of the test and the date the DPH receives the test result.

Delaware has averaged 115.6 new COVID-19 cases over the last seven days after the DPH reported 125 new positives in Monday’s update. That number has more than doubled compared to two weeks ago when the state was averaging 46.4 new cases per day.

The weekly average is the highest since it was at 117.3 cases per day on May 18. The number was as low as 19.3 on June 26 before the recent uptick.

Delaware has recorded an all-time total of 111,681 positive COVID-19 cases. No new deaths were reported on Monday as that total remained at 1,833.

Forty individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Delaware — the most since July 14. Ten of those cases are considered critical, according to the DPH.

The CDC reported Monday 72.9% of Delaware adults have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines on the same day the United States as a whole hit 70%. The CDC’s Delaware data includes Delawareans vaccinated out of state and vaccinations done at sites such as Dover Air Force Base and Veterans Affairs who do not report data to the DPH.

There have been 1,060,615 doses of vaccine administered in Delaware, according to the DPH’s vaccine tracker as of Sunday at 11:59 p.m. A total of 519,434 individuals have been fully vaccinated while an additional 68,015 are partially vaccinated and are awaiting their second dose of a two-dose vaccine series. These totals includes non-Delawareans who were eligible to be vaccinated in the state because they either work in Delaware or receive their healthcare here.

The Delaware ZIP code with the highest percentage of its population fully vaccinated is the Wilmington-area ZIP code of 19807 with 69%. The lowest is the 19940 ZIP code of Delmar with 28.1% of its population fully vaccinated — the only ZIP code in the state to be below 30%.

A list of vaccination sites is available at here.

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