The number of new COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts hit a single-day high for both the year and the entire pandemic on Wednesday, when health officials reported another 7,817 newly confirmed cases along with 33 new deaths.
The report from the Department of Public Health pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 to 960,973 and the death toll to 19,525.
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The previous single-day high was 7,635 on Jan. 8, as the winter surge was receding, according to state data.
Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, dashboard, had been far lower than they were in spring, but have been rising lately. The discovery of omicron, a new COVID strain labeled a variant of concern by the World Health Organization over the Thanksgiving weekend, is being monitored in case it accelerates the recent surge statewide and across the U.S.
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Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests rose from 6.45% Tuesday to 7.02%, the highest it's been since Jan. 11. The metric was once above 30%, but had dropped under 0.5% until the delta variant began surging in the state.
The number of patients in Massachusetts hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 1,621, the most since Feb. 2. The figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July.
Of those currently hospitalized, 470 are fully vaccinated, 353 are in intensive care units and 206 are intubated.
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More than 12.4 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.
That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, over 5.5 million first shots, more than 4.7 million second shots and shy of 1.9 million booster shots. There have been more than 335,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Wednesday reported that a total of 5,054,170 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
