New Coronavirus Tests Rising; Vaccinations Also Rising

Since Monday, Delaware’s new positive coronavirus tests have increased from 125 to 335 on Wednesday. Thursday saw a bit of a decrease to 281. However the 7-day average of all positive tests has steadily increased from 5.1% last Sunday to 6.2% Thursday. By county on Thursday, New Castle had 132 new positive tests, Kent County 69 and Sussex 78, however Sussex saw the smallest decrease between Wednesday’s higher numbers – only dropping by 5. Kent and New Castle each decreased by 25 new cases.

Hospitalizations continue to rise and are now at 111 with 10 people in critical condition. New Castle has 56 hospitalized with 3 critical. Kent has 20 hospitalized with 2 critical and Sussex has 35 hospitalized with 5 critical. There have been 2 deaths from the virus this week – a Sussex Countian in their 80s who was not vaccinated on Monday and a New Castle resident in their 50s who was also not vaccinated on Wednesday.

While vaccinations slowed for much of July, they have started to pick up again this week. Tuesday saw over 2600 people get at least one dose of a vaccine – with 927 becoming fully vaccinated. Thursday saw 2889 Delawareans get at least one dose – with 1059 becoming fully vaccinated. And the overall percentage of all Delawareans now fully vaccinated for coronavirus is at 50% going by the Department of Public Health’s metrics. The CDC which includes some groups that do not report to the state – is at 53.5% of all Delawareans who are fully vaccinated. While the numbers are better – they still are not close to what is considered herd immunity and while more people are becoming ill with coronavirus – and possibly the Delta variant – that gives the virus more of a chance to continue to mutate – possibly into a variant that will not be affected by the current vaccines.