I have closely watched the reported COVID-19 numbers for Maryland, Carroll County and Howard County since the beginning of this pandemic…publishing MANY articles on those numbers here on the Blog. I am watching the numbers in January 2022 and seeing a trend that closely mirrors what we saw a year ago (which could be a good thing if the noted trends continue).
Here is a look at some of the key metrics reported today and a look back at what was reported in 2021.
Daily New Number of Cases:
In 2021: The Jan 2021 peak number of new cases was on Jan 9th with 3,758…and then we began to see an overall decline in the number of new cases reported until the Spring.
In 2022: The peak number (to date) of new cases was on Jan 9th with 17,252…and now we have seen falling numbers of new cases reported though Jan 16th (latest reported was 7,870)
ICU and Acute Hospital Beds for COVID-19, Currently in Use
In 2021: The Jan 2021 peak number of hospitalizations was on Jan 11th with 1,951…and then we began to see an overall decline in the number of hospitalizations reported until the Spring.
In 2022: The peak number (to date) of hospitalizations was on Jan 10th with 3,452…and now we have seen falling numbers though Jan 16th (latest reported is 3,122)
Positivity Rate
In 2021: The Jan 2021 peak COVID-19 Positivity Rate was on Jan 3rd with 9.47%…and then we began to see an overall decline in the number of Positivity Rate reported until the Spring.
In 2022: The peak number (to date) of Positivity Rate was on Jan 5th with 29.98%…and now we have seen falling numbers though Jan 16th (latest reported is 21.91%)
COVID-19 Case Rate per 100K
In 2021: The Jan 2021 peak Case Rate per 100K was on Jan 12th with 53.39…and then we began to see an overall decline in the number of Case Rate per 100K reported until the Spring.
In 2022: The peak number (to date) of Case Rate per 100K was on Jan 8th with 221.17…and now we have seen falling numbers though Jan 16th (latest reported is 162.16)
Reported Deaths due to COVID-19
Notes: I am the first to say that this is not a great chart on the Maryland COVID-19 Dashboard. It makes trending a little difficult. I pulled the data into a spreadsheet and looked at this data by week instead of by day.
I would say that in 2021 the trends of reported deaths started to decline in late January or early February (we all have been told that reported deaths is usually considered a trailing indicator to the other metrics noted above).
To date in 2022 we have yet to see the decline but if the trends above hold true and continue to fall I would expect this metric to follow what we have seen in the past as well (at least I very much hope it will)
Note: I could not do a weekly trend before December 4th due to missing data from 12/5/21 to 12/27/21 on this metric in the Dataset from the State of Maryland.
I want to be very clear on a couple of items:
- The overall reported COVID-19 numbers are still at significant levels right now.
- We should not think that we are in the clear and all is good based on the trends mentioned above….it is still early in 2022 and the numbers could trend differently this year.
I did think that the recent trends were worth pointing out as a POTENTIAL good thing and hopefully we see what we did in early 2021 and the numbers in those key metrics noted above continue to fall significantly going forward in 2022.
I continue to watch the local daily new cases numbers and thought I would add those to this article.
Daily New COVID-19 Cases in Carroll County (Dec 1 2021 - Jan 16, 2022)
Note: I am not sure there is much of a declining trend yet in the Carroll County numbers and I will continue to watch for that (hopefully soon).
Daily New COVID-19 Cases in Howard County (Dec 1 2021 - Jan 16, 2022)
Note: There does appear to be a possible slight decline in daily cases in Howard County. I would not call it significant yet but I will continue to track it in my offline spreadsheet and report out numbers here on the Blog.
If interested in these numbers and charts you can find them on the Maryland Department of Health COVID-19 Dashboard: https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/
If interested in the various datasets from the State you can find those here: https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/search?collection=Dataset
Click here if you are still looking to get vaccinated or your booster shot: https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/pages/vaccine
Click here if you are looking for COVID-19 testing options: https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/pages/symptoms-testing
I remain hopeful that the numbers will continue to decline and some of the restrictions enacted in some jurisdictions will be lifted at some point in the near future.
Scott E
