Hamilton County sets new single-day high for new COVID cases

The 948 new cases smashes the previous high set back in January

The United States reported 1-point-9 million new cases of COVID-19 this week. That equals about 3 Americans testing positive for the virus every second.

Today, Hamilton County set a record for number of new cases in one day. The Health Department reported 948 new cases today, smashing the previous high of 655 back on January 8th of this year.

With the omicron variant surge, Hamilton County has seen an increase of 382 percent since Monday. The low over the last year has been 7, set on June 8th of this year, before the Delta variant took control. When Delta became the big strain, the highest daily total was 655.

As for hospitalizations, there really hasn’t been much of a major change despite the number of cases skyrocketing. 124 inpatients and 10 people suspected of having COVID today. That’s up from 121 and 8 Tuesday and 113 and 9 on Monday. The previous high for inpatients was September 13th, when Delta was in full swing.

The COVID patients here in Hamilton County that are in intensive care is fairly consistent with what we’ve seen for the week. 29 today, 30 on Tuesday, and 28 from Monday. The highest number comes in from September 13th, just after the Delta variant surge, which was 99 patients in the I-C-U.

We’re only in the middle of the week, and Hamilton County reported four deaths due to COVID. That number is likely to grow, but last week had nine deaths, and we may not reach that number one week later. The previous weekly high was 42, back over a year ago. Hamilton County has seen 779 deaths due to COVID since the pandemic began.

So, here’s where Hamilton County has seen the most cases… The zip codes 37343, which is Hixson and 37421, which includes East Brainerd and Tyner, have by far the most. The number for Hixson comes in at over 78 hundred, but is only outpaced by 37421, which saw almost ten thousand total cases since the pandemic began.

When it comes to active cases, those two zip codes are joined by 37363, or Ooltewah. East Brainerd has 206 active cases, Hixson 171, and Ooltewah 149.

The state health department reports than just under 11 Tennesseans per hundred thousand die due to COVID, and this state is among those with the lowest fully vaccinated rates. The Hamilton County Health Department encourages all people in the area to mask up, limit indoor gatherings and socially distance especially with New Year’s coming up.