Maryland sets new single-day record for new COVID-19 cases amid surge
MARYLAND (FOX 5 DC) - The state of Maryland set a new single-day record on Thursday for the number of new COVID-19 cases with 6,869 reported.
FOX 5 spoke to health officials who are concerned more unvaccinated individuals will end up in the hospital because of how fast the Omicron variant is spreading.
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"Our hospitals are still overwhelmingly, the majority of them are people who haven’t been vaccinated, and those who have been just haven’t seen their booster shots," said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a Physician in Pulmonary Critical Care at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The previous single-day record of COVID-19 cases in the state of Maryland was Jan. 9 with 3,758 new cases.
Dr. Galiatsatos said he wasn’t surprised to see the new record of COVID-19 cases.
"The fact that the rates are going higher, that speaks more to human behavior," Dr. Galiatsatos said. "We just had Thanksgiving, many people got infected, we let our guard down compared to last year probably a lot more holiday parties were happening and other family gatherings."
According to the Maryland Health Department's website, there are now 1,505 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
This time last year it was 1,760, and the state saw the most COVID-19 hospitalizations on Jan. 12 with more than 1,929.
Dr. Galiatsatos says the reason we're seeing fewer hospitalizations even though we have a record number of cases is because a majority of people in the area are vaccinated.
"With so many of us vaccinated even if we catch coronavirus, we're likely to only have a mild case of that disease. That’s got to be a point that we’ve got to continue emphasizing the purpose of the vaccine was not to not catch COVID the purpose of it was to transform COVID if you were to catch it into a mild disease."
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Dr. Galiatstatos said he does expect another COVID surge after the Christmas holiday.