Delaware’s COVID-19 death toll jumped by 12 Tuesday, pushing the overall number to 237.
This comes after the state reported just a single fatality Monday and 3 on Sunday.
The victims announced Tuesday were between 66 and 89-years old. Five lived in New Castle County while four were from Kent County and two from Sussex County. One person's county of residence is unknown at this time.
All 12 had underlying health conditions and seven were long-term care facility residents.
There are also 176 new positive cases, lifting the total since March 11th to 6,741.
114 of those new cases are in Sussex County, which is now over 32 hundred overall to date. New Castle County saw 50 new cases to reach 2,440 so far.Kent County reports 16 new cases and 1,060 overall.
Key indicators for reopening the state remain mixed.
Current hospitalizations were up just one to 276. That number has held at or below 300 for almost 2 weeks. 63 people are critically ill.
And the 5-day average for new positive cases continues to trend downward. It sits at 102.3.
But the 5-day average for the percentage of people testing positive is trending slightly upward for a few days now after dipping significantly at the end of last week. It currently sits at 34.2 percent. It was ar 13.4 on Friday.
Gov. John Carney said at his Tuesday press briefing that he and state health officials believe that is an “aberration” of the data collection system — and should be lower.
“We know that we‘ve tested a lot more people. So my guess is that the denominator doesn’t reflect all of those tests,” said Carney.
People considered recovered are up 183 Monday to 2,802. Negative tests to date in Delaware now total more than 26,000.
