New Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to increase, according to the Monday report from the Delawre Division of Public Health.
Total current hospitalizations were revised downward to 688 for Jan. 8, reflecting updated information from one of the hospital systems. However, hospitalizations as of Sunday night rose to new record.
On Monday, the state’s hospitals went into a crisis care mode, a designation that offers more flexibility in dealing with cases when campuses are at full occupancy.
Also, Gov. John Carney issued an emergecy order requiring masks at most indoor public spaces, beginning Tuesday morning.
DPH also confirmed through test samples that Omicron is now the dominant strain of the virus. Of the samples collected during the week of Dec. 20 -26, the Omicron variant represented 78% of cases sequenced for a variant of concern, variant of interest, or variant being monitored. The remaining 22% of cases were identified as Delta.
Genome sequencing is a public health surveillance tool used to monitor the prevalence of variants. It is not used to diagnose individuals with a specific strain of Covid-19 as treatment recommendations do not differ based on variant strains.
The other numbers
- No new deaths were reported, keeping the total number of COVID-related deaths at 2,365. Also, current hospitalizations set a new updated high of 714, surpassing the previous high of 698 on Jan. 7, 2022.
- 1,856 new positive cases, bringing the overall total to 208,340.
- 29.6% of total tests were positive in the seven-day rolling average, up 1.3 percentage points from the previous day.
- 714 current hospitalizations, a new high during the pandemic and up 26 from the previous day, including 77 individuals in critical condition.
- 30 new hospital admissions, down 1 from the previous day.
- 8,732 tests performed daily in the 7-day average (up 34 from the previous day).
For more data, including breakdowns by age, sex, race/ethnicity, at the statewide, county, and, in some cases, zip code or census tract level, click here.
