COVID-19: Maryland reports 1st death in child under 10; Delaware hospitalizations pass 200

SALISBURY, Md. — The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone as the country battles a surge in the persistent COVID-19 pandemic.

States have enacted stricter precautions and officials continue to monitor key metrics, while health experts work toward critical developments in how the novel virus is treated and prevented in the future.

TidalHealth will be the first site on Maryland's Eastern Shore able to start distributing a new COVID-19 treatment that could help keep the most at-risk patients from experiencing severe symptoms, and major drug companies with promising vaccine candidates have started requesting emergency authorization from the FDA.

Here are insights from a week's worth of COVID-19 data out of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia as of Monday, Nov. 30:

Maryland

Somerset County holds Maryland's highest COVID-19 positivity rate at 18.07%.

Over the last seven days, the county has seen 175 more residents test positive for the novel virus. It's one of four Maryland jurisdictions with a positivity rate above 10 percent.

Somerset County has been seeing a significant increase in cases at Eastern Correctional Institution. Between Nov. 18 and Nov. 25, cases among staff at the state-run prison and its annex jumped from 83 to 106 and cases among inmates from 54 to 188.

That's an increase of more than 114% in a week's time.

UPDATE:Gov. Hogan: Maryland hospitals could reach record-high COVID-19 cases within days

Replay:Gov. Larry Hogan to give COVID-19 press conference Dec. 1

Data posted Friday, Nov. 27, by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services puts staff cases at 97, with 77 recovered, and inmate cases at 221, with 19 recovered.

Maryland Department of Health calculations show little change in the statewide positivity rate compared to a week ago. It's at 6.86% as of Monday morning — down just slightly from 6.88% a week ago.

The state has reported another 14,573 infections during this seven-day period, which brings its case count to 198,370. That's down in comparison to the more than 16,000 cases the state added for the week prior.

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Worcester County is below the statewide positivity rate at 5.59%, while Wicomico County is just above it at 6.93%. Worcester is among 12 jurisdictions with a rate below that of the state.

Over the past week, the number of infected residents on the Lower Eastern Shore has risen by a combined 511 — 268 of those cases out of Wicomico and 68 from Worcester.

Here's the number of cases in each of the Lower Shore counties with deaths in parentheses:

• Wicomico County - 3,440 (59)
• Worcester County - 1,483 (38)
• Somerset County - 918 (9)

The region's death toll is up by five, with at least one new virus-related fatality added for each county. Wicomico reported three deaths, and Worcester and Somerset have each reported one.

While the bulk of COVID-19 deaths in Maryland — nearly 90% — have been people who were over the age of 60, the state reported its youngest fatality Monday in a child between the ages of 0 and 9 years old.

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Four out of the more than 4,400 virus-related deaths in Maryland have been among those 0 - 19 years old. The state confirmed its first fatality in the 10 - 19 age range in May, and two more have been reported since then.

Monday marks the first report of a confirmed death in Maryland of a child younger than 10 years old.

The state has 1,527 COVID-19 patients in hospitals compared to 1,276 a week ago.

Patients in intensive care make up 344 of those hospitalizations, which is an added 55 intensive care beds filled over the last seven days.

Both metrics have almost tripled since Nov. 1, though they remain below their peak levels reported in May.

Virginia

Another 51 COVID-19 cases have been identified in Virginia's Eastern Shore Health District over the past week.

Accomack County gained 38 infections for an overall case tally of 1,346 and Northampton County gained 13 for a tally of 352.

That's slightly less than the 57 infections added to the region's total for the previous week.

The statewide total is up by 16,797 infections to 237,835 overall cases.

Among the new cases reported in the last seven days are three new infections associated with outbreaks on the Eastern Shore.

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The state has identified a second outbreak in a K-12 school in the region.

Multiple schools in Accomack County have reported cases within their campus communities, but the Virginia Department of Health defines a school outbreak "as at least two confirmed cases of COVID-19 where persons are linked by a common exposure to an ill person, setting, event and time period."

This latest outbreak puts the Shore at four in long-term care facilities, 10 in congregate settings, one a correctional facility, one in a healthcare setting and two in K-12 schools. There are have been 894 cases associated with those 18 total outbreaks.

There have been no new virus-related deaths reported for Accomack or Northampton, but Accomack has two more hospitalized residents and Northampton has one more. This is the first hospitalization Northampton has added since mid-August.

Virginia currently has 1,658 COVID-19 patients hospitalized — an increase of close to 10% over last Monday.

That surpasses a previous high over the summer of 1,625 hospitalized patients, according to data from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.

Delaware

Delaware's current COVID-19 hospitalizations surpassed 200 in the past week.

That metric has climbed by more than 36% during this period, reaching 243 Monday. The number of hospitalized patients from Sussex County went from 48 to 55.

An additional 3,443 Delawareans have tested positive for COVID-19 since last Monday. The state's overall sum of cases has reached 35,654.

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The Sussex case total blew past 10,000 infections. The 643 cases gained over the last week puts the lower Delaware county at a tally of 10,436 residents who have tested positive for the novel virus.

The seven-day average of new cases each day has increased from 428 to roughly 488 for all over Delaware, while Sussex is seeing an average of almost 92 cases daily, which has come down slightly.

Delaware's COVID-19 death toll is at 772, which represents 20 new virus-related fatalities. Five of the individuals who died in the past week were from Sussex County.

About 56% of the Delawareans who have died after contracting COVID-19 have been residents of long-term care facilities.

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A Nov. 27 update from the Division of Public Health shows three of the eight long-term care facilities in Delaware that have been experiencing significant ongoing outbreaks since September are in Sussex County.

There have been 19 residents and 11 staff members from Lofland Park in Seaford, 34 residents and 32 staff members from Delmar Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and 14 residents and 29 staff from The Moorings at Lewes who have tested positive for COVID-19.