By Tim MastroDOVER — With the holidays in full swing, the Delaware Division of Public Health is increasing the availability of COVID-19 testing kits, especially its Curative Inc. sites, due to large demand.
DPH said Curative did 50% more tests last week than the week before. Walk-ins will be limited this week. So those looking to get tested should make an appointment at Curative.com or any other testing locations. A full list of testing sites are available here.
DPH advised Delawareans to get tested as early in the week as possible because many sites will be closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the New Year’s holiday weekend.
The state has seen a significant rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations recently as DPH reported 447 individuals hospitalized with the virus in Monday’s update — the highest mark since 448 were hospitalized on Jan. 20.
New Castle County leads the state with 250 hospitalized, near its record of 269 set on Jan. 9. Sussex County is even closer to its all-time high for COVID-19 hospitalizations with 116 in Monday’s report, nearing its record of 122 from Jan, 20. Kent County, whose record is 112 on Jan. 12, reported 81 hospitalizations on Monday.
The state’s all-time record for hospitalizations is 474 set on Jan. 12.
Delaware’s seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests is up to 14.7% as of Friday at 6 p.m. There is a two-day lag for presenting that data to account for the delay between the date of the test and the date DPH receives the test result.
Kent County has the highest seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests out of the state’s three counties at 18.6%. Sussex County is next with a mark of 13.2%, followed by New Castle County’s 12.5%.
Clayton posted the highest percent-positive rate for the week of Dec. 18-24 with 50% of its tests coming back positive. Other ZIP codes positing high percent-positive rates for the week were Dagsboro at 40%, Ocean View at 30%, Lincoln at 28.6%, Bridgeville at 27.3% and Wilmington’s 19802 ZIP code at 25%.
The state has averaged 1,005.1 new cases of COVID-19 over the last seven days. DPH reported 439 new cases on Monday to bring the state’s total to 173,258. No new deaths were reported as that number remained at 2,271.
