COVID-19 cases rising nationwide and in Maryland, raising fears of fifth wave
Fox 45 News by Margaret Chadbourn Saturday, May 21st 2022
BALTIMORE (WBFF) — More than two years after the start of the pandemic, Covid-19 cases are on the rise nationally, including in Maryland, creating fears that we may be heading into a fifth wave of the deadly disease.
The Maryland Department of Health reports cases are rising, but hospitalizations remain relatively low.
Still, for the first time since February, the state is seeing more than 400 people hospitalized with 426 patients occupying hospital beds due to Covid. An uptick in hospitalizations often lags an increase in infections.
The positivity rate in Maryland stands at 8.39%, which is above the 5% threshold indicating widespread infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still considers the risk to Marylanders to be low for the time being.
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But Johns Hopkins University is recording about 100,000 new cases a day nationwide for the first time in months. Much of the worry is focused on the Northeast where case counts are increasing most rapidly.
White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha is also warning that the infection rate is probably worse than government data show.
“We’re crossing that 100,000 threshold, and I’m convinced we are substantially undercounting the number of infections out there because of home tests. We have a lot of infections,” he said. “It’s continuing to rise, and I expect that that number will continue to rise in the days and weeks ahead.”
So far, new government restrictions, such as requiring masks to be worn, are not being implemented by the federal government or in the states with public opinion polls showing many Americans ready to move on from those types of precautions.
There is some good news on the pandemic front – children ages 5 to 11 are now eligible for more protection against the virus with the CDC authorizing a booster shot for that age group.