Maryland confirmed 958 new cases of the coronavirus Monday and 27 more people died due to complications from the illness since Sunday, briging the state’s totals to 39,762 cases and 1,903 fatalities.
In addition, 120 people more have probably died due to the disease or complications of it, but are awaiting laboratory results to confirm their diagnosis. The daily number of new fatalities was the lowest figure since May 3.
In Maryland, 1,447 people are currently hospitalized for coronavirus, with 555 in intensive care and 892 in acute or short-term care. Officials say 2,817 people have been released from isolation. More than 161,700 Marylanders have tested negative for the virus.
Gov. Larry Hogan has said officials are looking closely at hospitalizations and ICU states in deciding when to further roll back restrictions put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. The number of hospitalizations caused by the coronavirus have held steady or decreased throughout May.
Hogan highlighted Monday that the state has now conducted over 200,000 coronavirus tests.
“Expanding our testing capacity is one of our critical building blocks to recovery, and we continue to increase testing efforts at community-based sites and in response to high-priority outbreaks and clusters,” the Republican governor wrote on Twitter.
Prince George’s and Montgomery counties continue to lead the state in total cases, with 11,608 and 8,417, respectively.
State data on rates of infection continues to show disparities across categories of race and ethnicity. Officials say more than 12,000 black Marylanders have tested positive for the virus and 777 have died. Hispanic people are facing one of the highest rates of infection of any race or ethnic group in Maryland, with a total 8,907 having tested positive and at least 154 fatalities.
