R.I. daily COVID-19 cases set another record, rising by 5.3K

PROVIDENCE – Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Rhode Island have reached another single-day record, increasing by 5,373, with five new deaths, the R.I. Department of Health said Thursday.

Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients total 434, an increase from 405 reported on Wednesday. Of those hospitalized, 47 are in intensive care units and 35 are on ventilators.

There have been 2,642 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 1,571 new cases identified Jan. 5, 2021. The transmission rate on Jan. 4, 2021, was 655 cases per 100,000 residents.

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While new cases of COVID-19 and the transmission rate are higher than this time last year, hospitalizations are not. There were 446 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Jan. 5, 2021, of whom 62 were in the ICU and 40 were on ventilators.

To date, there have been 788,395 individuals fully vaccinated in the state, as well as 1.98 million total COVID-19 vaccines doses administered, another lowered adjustment from Wednesday’s count of 805,324 fully vaccinated Rhode Islanders. 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 total 260,110, an increase of 6,918 from figures reported Wednesday, accounting for the day-to-day increases and data revisions for previous days.

Deaths due to the virus in Rhode Island now total 3,112.

There were 29,716 tests processed on Wednesday with a positive rate of 18.1%. There have been 6.74 million tests administered in the state.