County Adds 80 New COVID-19 Cases; Positivity Rate Drops

SILVER SPRING, MD — Montgomery County registered 80 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, as well as one more death associated with the virus.

The latest additions push the total number of confirmed cases and deaths in the county to 68,945 and 1,455, respectively.

The latest fatality count does not include the 46 others whose deaths were linked to the virus but never confirmed by a lab test. For now, they are considered "probable deaths."

Montgomery County — which is home to roughly 1 million people — continues to have the highest number of deaths in the state. It also has the second-highest number of confirmed cases, after Prince George's County, which has 81,523, according to the latest figures.

Across Maryland, there have been 437,584 cases, 8,406 confirmed deaths, and 186 "probable deaths." Of the 1,282 people currently being hospitalized statewide, 310 are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

The positivity rate measures the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive in a one-week span. According to data released Tuesday, Maryland's test positivity rate is 5.4 percent. In Montgomery County, it's 2.95 percent — down from 3.02 percent the day before.

As of Tuesday, Maryland has administered 3,991,069 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Among those, 2,340,897 were first doses and 1,470,414 were second doses.

In Montgomery County, 493,178 residents (46.9 percent) have received their first dose. A total of 306,377 residents (29.2 percent) have already gotten their second and final shot.