Massachusetts health officials reported another 4,838 confirmed COVID-19 cases -- the most in one day since January -- and 25 new deaths Wednesday, as the state's death toll surpassed 19,000 and its positive test rate continued to surge.
The report from the Department of Public Health pushed the state's number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 860,280 since the start of the pandemic and its death toll to 19,016.
The last time Massachusetts reported more than 4,838 COVID cases over one day was on Jan. 22, as last winter's surge was receding.
Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, dashboard, had been far lower than they were in spring, but have been rising lately. The discovery of omicron, a new COVID strain labeled a variant of concern by the World Health Organization over the Thanksgiving weekend, is being monitored in case it accelerates the recent surge statewide and across the U.S. -- though no cases have been identified in the Massachusetts so far.
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Massachusetts' seven-day average of positive tests jumped from 4.46% on Tuesday to 5.14%, reaching a level last seen on Jan. 21, state data shows. The metric 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 957, the most since Feb. 19, 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, 355 are fully vaccinated, 204 are in intensive care units and 104 are intubated.
More than 11.4 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Massachusetts.
That includes, from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, nearly 5.4 million first shots, over 4.5 million second shots and more than 1.1 million booster shots. There have been more than 329,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered.
Health officials on Wednesday reported that a total of 4,872,345 Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.
