By Tim Mastro

WILMINGTON — As March draws to a close, Delaware is posting its highest COVID-19 numbers of the month.

Delaware is averaging 284.6 new positive cases per day over the last seven days, which is the highest total since Feb. 28, according to data via the Delaware Division of Public Health as of Monday at 6 p.m.

The seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests is up to 5%, which is the recommended mark by the World Health Organization and the highest it has been since Feb. 26. The seven-day percent-positive rate was as low as 3.6% in mid-March before this recent uptick.

Hospitalizations increased by 19 compared to the day prior, up to 134, which is the most since March 2. Hospitalizations hit a 2021 low of 83 on March 11 but have been over 100 for the last 15 days.

“We’re in the last couple miles of the marathon,” said Gov. John Carney. “We need to run through hard, we need to run through the finish line and, to do that, we need to do the things we were instructed to from the beginning — keep social distancing, sanitize your hands and most importantly, wear that mask. It’s a small sacrifice to make to make sure that your favorite restaurant can get back to business with full capacity.”

While Gov. Carney increased capacity for outdoor venues on Monday, which will go into effect Thursday at 8 a.m., he kept indoor capacity at 50%.

Surrounding states, such as Pennsylvania and Maryland had announced they will be increasing indoor capacity. Maryland, for instance, will have no capacity limits, although social distancing and other regulations will stay in place, per Gov. Larry Hogan’s order.

Gov. Carney said he has had discussions with Gov. Hogan regarding capacity, pointing out if social-distancing restrictions are still in place, most indoor venues in Maryland can still only operate at 50% anyway.

“That limits capacity on its own,” Gov. Carney said of distance restrictions. “The question is whether you have a fire code capacity limit on top of that and Maryland does not have that. I talked to Gov. Hogan directly about it and he agreed with me that those limitations of spacing within an establishment effectively limit the capacity to 50% anyway. So it’s really a question of your attitude towards it. Are you more cautious or less? Right now we have to be a little more cautious with indoor gatherings.”

Gov. Carney noted outdoor gatherings are safer, which is why they were allowed to increase to 150 individuals. Capacity can increase further at certain venues, pending approval from the DPH.

The governor said he did not want to increase indoor occupancy just yet as Delaware is experiencing its highest case rates and percent-positive rates this month.

“We’re heading in the wrong direction there,” he said.

Dr. Karyl Rattay, DPH director, said some of the COVID-19 variants could be driving the recent increases.

The DPH has tested 1,152 samples of positive tests to look for variants. It has recorded 17 cases of B.1.1.7, commonly refereed to the U.K. Variant which originated in the United Kingdom and is on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of “Variants of Concern.”

Other variants on the CDC’s list of concern which have been confirmed in Delaware are B.1.429 a California variant (five cases), B.1.427 another California variant (two cases) and B.1.351 which originated in South Africa (one case).

Two variants on the CDC’s list of “Variants of Interest” have also been discovered, both originating in New York. The DPH has confirmed 23 cases of B.1.526 and one of B.1.525.

“It really is important that we don’t let our guard down at this point as we are seeing some slight increases,” said Dr. Rattay.

The DPH reported 187 new positive cases on Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 94,573. It also announced seven newly reported COVID-19-related deaths to increase that total to 1,559.

One of the seven was a resident of a long-term care facility — the 731st COVID-19-related death from a long-term care center. Three of the seven were from New Castle County, another three were from Sussex County and the other was a Kent County residents. The seven individuals ranged in age from 57 to 88 years old.