By Tim Mastro

DOVER — Of Delaware’s COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week of Sept. 13-19, 79% were not fully vaccinated, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health.

In that time frame, the most recent available dataset, there were 124 new hospitalizations and 98 were not fully vaccinated. For new cases during the same week, 2472 of 3164 (78%) were not fully vaccinated.

Delaware has recorded a total of 3,359 breakthrough cases — a positive test for COVID-19 after an individual has been fully vaccinated for two weeks or more. This total represents less than 0.6% of Delawareans who have been fully vaccinated.

There have been 1,942 COVID-19-related deaths in Delaware. Nineteen of those occurred during Sept. 13-19 and 61% of the 19 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, DPH said.

Delaware is averaging 466.9 new cases of COVID-19 per day over the last week, including 611 cases reported in DPH’s Saturday update.

The delta variant continues to be the most prevalent variant in the state at the moment with 241 cases identified last week. One case of the mu variant was also found, bringing that total to 19.

There have been 1,038 confirmed cases of delta in Delaware, but since every positive test is not sampled for variants the actual number is likely higher.

Of the test samples sequenced at DPH’s lab in the last week, 230 of 320 were positive for a variant strain (71.9%), as were 12 additional specimens sequenced at an outside lab.

DPH’s lab has sequenced 4,825 specimens for COVID-19 variant strains to date.

DPH also reported 215 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Saturday’s update — the lowest number since Aug. 27. Of those hospitalized, 33 cases are considered critical.

Delaware’s hospitalizations hit a peak of 271 during the recent surge, after being below 50 for all of July. The all-time high is 474 during the height of the pandemic in January.