PROVIDENCE – Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Rhode Island increased by 4,885 on Tuesday, with 11 new deaths, the R.I. Department of Health said Wednesday.
It is the second-most cases the state has reported in a single day since the start of the pandemic. Monday’s confirmed case count, originally reported Tuesday afternoon by RIDOH as 4,141, was adjusted to 4,926 – which is the highest count to date.
Hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 totaled 405, an increase from 382 reported on Tuesday. Of those hospitalized, 51 were in intensive care units and 38 were on ventilators. It’s the first time since Jan. 19, 2021, that COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeded 400 in the Ocean state.
There have been 2,353 new cases per 100,000 Rhode Island residents in the previous seven days, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as “high transmission.”
By comparison from year to year, there were 1,157 new cases identified on Jan. 4, 2021, about less than a quarter of what the current timeframe shows for cases. The transmission rate on Jan. 4, 2021, was 655 cases per 100,000 residents.
While new cases of COVID-19 and the transmission rate are higher than this time last year, hospitalizations are not. There were 452 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Jan. 4, 2021, of which 64 were in the ICU and 42 were on ventilators.
To date, there have been 805,324 individuals fully vaccinated in the state, as well as 1.97 million total COVID-19 vaccines doses administered. The fully vaccinated count shows a decrease from the 809,410 reported Tuesday. RIDOH spokesperson Joseph Wendelken told Providence Business News in an email Wednesday that the department regularly does data validation work. This work, over the last few days, resulted in some duplicated records being removed from the count, hence the reason why the current fully vaccinated count lowered from day to day, he said.
Confirmed cases in the state have totaled 253,192 to date, an increase of 5,868 from figures reported Tuesday, accounting for the day-to-day increases as well as data revisions for previous days.
Deaths due to the virus in Rhode Island have totaled 3,107.
There were 26,450 tests processed on Monday with a positive rate of 18.5%. There have been 6.7 million tests administered in the state.
The department also noted on Wednesday that there were 304 monodonal antibody treatments administered by providers across the state the previous week. To date, there have been 8,226 MAB treatments administered.
(UPDATED to include a comment for the Department of Health explaining the decline in the number of people fully vaccinated in the state.)
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and he covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
