Maryland sees worst five-day streak for coronavirus cases

Maryland has experienced its worst five-day streak of new coronavirus cases yet, confirming more than 1,000 new daily cases for each day.

After confirming 708 new cases Tuesday, Maryland saw 1,046 cases Wednesday, 1,213 cases Thursday, 1,116 cases Friday, 1,046 cases Saturday and 1,055 cases Sunday. None of the individual days in the five-day streak met the all-time single-day high of 1,741 on May 1.

Hospitalizations, meanwhile, are down, with state officials announcing the biggest single-day drop in hospitalizations yet between Sunday and Monday. Intensive care cases also fell from 611 Sunday to 585 Monday.

The state has 33,373 cases overall as of Monday afternoon, including 786 cases in the past 24 hours, breaking the 1,000-a-day spike, and the state’s seven-day average has remained flat.

Maryland is scheduled to begin its first stage of reopening in the week ahead, but the process has been complicated by both case numbers and its proximity to other parts of the capital region, including Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. Montgomery County, which has the second-highest number of cases in the state, has said it will reopen on a slower timeline.

“I can assure you that until our health officer thinks that it’s safe to open, we will not be opening some of these things,” Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said in a Zoom call Saturday. “I’m like everybody else. Physical distancing and sheltering in place is hard. After a while, you just want to go out. … But we’re not ready for that yet.”

“We are in a densely populated metropolitan area, and we share borders with other jurisdictions,” he added, saying the county needed to expand testing capacity and observe a sustained decline in cases and hospitalizations. “It is important that whatever any one of us does, we all do. Until we are all ready to open, it is not prudent for any one of us to open.”