Delaware reports highest number of COVID cases since January

By Tim Mastro

DOVER — The Delaware Division of Public Health reported 645 new cases of COVID-19 in Thursday’s update — the highest one-day total since January.

Delaware has experienced a recent surge in case rates in hospitalizations as the state is averaging 400.4 new cases per day over the last week. Hospitalizations are up to 241, which is the most since Oct. 3.

The last time Delaware reported more than 645 positive cases was 672 on Jan. 23 back when the vaccine rollout was just underway. Now 65.8% of Delaware’s total population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. DPH’s weekly update on breakthrough cases is due to come out tonight. The most recent report from last Friday had a total of 7,122 breakthrough cases — 1.31% of the 545,057 fully vaccinated Delawareans.

Both Kent County and Sussex County posted their highest number of new cases in the last 90 days on Thursday. Sussex County reported 165 while Kent County had 161. New Castle County, the state’s most populous county, recorded 334 cases in Thursday’s update, the second-highest over the last 90 days.

DPH also announced three new COVID-19-related deaths in Thursday’s report — all three were unvaccinated individuals from Kent County.

All case data via DPH is as of Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Delaware’s seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests is at 8.2%, above the World Health Organization’s recommended mark of 5%. All three counties are also above this mark.

Kent County has the highest percent-positive rate over the last seven days at 9.7%, followed by Sussex County’s 9.3% and New Castle County’s 7.2%.

All data related to percentage of positive tests is as of Monday 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 DPH receives the test result.

Delaware is averaging 1,409.1 tests administered per day over the last seven days, as of Monday at 6 p.m.

Case rates in the 5- to 17-year-old age demographic has increased the most. That age group had the second-lowest case rate per 10,000 people of the six different age demographics back in May but it has gone up to the third-most since then.

The 5- to 17-year-old case rate has jumped from 876.2 cases per 10,000 people on Aug. 1 to 1,580.1 cases per 10,000 as of Wednesday at 6 p.m. The case rate trails only the 18- to 34-year-old age group (2,132.6 cases per 10,000) and 35-49-year-olds (1,913.5 cases per 10,000) at this time.

Delaware has recorded a total of 154,413 positive cases throughout the course of the pandemic with 2,182 COVID-19-related deaths.