Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist at South Shore Hospital, joined us to discuss Omicron — the new variant of concern first detected in South Africa.
Massachusetts health officials reported another 5,058 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 24 new deaths Friday, encompassing data from the past two days as the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard was not posted on Thanksgiving Day.
The most recent report pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 847,030 since the start of the pandemic and its death toll to 18,939.
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Massachusetts' COVID metrics had been far lower than they were in spring, but have been rising lately. Friday again marks the highest number of hospitalized patients since the beginning of March.
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Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests ticked up to 3.37% Friday. It 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 increased to 771, the most since March 1, according to state data; the figure was once nearly 4,000, but reached under an average of 85 at one point in July. Of those currently hospitalized, 156 are in intensive care units and 84 are intubated.
As of Friday, more than 80% of the state's ICU beds are occupied, state data shows.
More than 11.2 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.
That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, more than 5.3 million first shots, over 4.5 million second shots and more than 1 million booster shots. There have been more than 327,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Friday reported that a total of 4,841,958 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
