As coronavirus positivity levels drop in Frederick County and hospitalization metrics show long-awaited signs of improvement, the number of reported deaths caused by the virus has risen dramatically in recent days.

In the past week, the county Health Department added the deaths of 23 people to its COVID-19 dashboard. It reported five new deaths on Thursday and six on Wednesday. For months last year, stretching from late spring through the summer, it was rare for the county to log more than two new deaths per day.

With more than a week left in January, the county has already recorded 40 deaths this month — the fifth highest total since the pandemic began. The county logged 50 deaths last January, five less than its record 55 deaths in April 2020.

Data has indicated that the omicron variant of the coronavirus — far and wide the most dominant strain in Frederick County and beyond — is milder and less lethal than previous variants of the virus. But at Thursday night’s local Board of Health meeting, county health officer Dr. Barbara Brookmyer stressed it is still contributing to hospitalizations and deaths.

“When we have so many people who are becoming infected,” she said, “a smaller percentage of a bigger number is still a big number.”

Deaths from the virus have been trending upwards elsewhere in the country, too. Earlier this week, The Associated Press reported that modelers predict 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans could die by the time the pandemic’s current surge subsides in mid-March.

But one big difference between the most recent wave and the one that occurred last winter is where most of these deaths are occurring locally — in the hospital, rather than nursing homes and assisted living facilities, said health department spokeswoman Rissah Watkins.

She and Brookmyer attribute this to the protective shield that vaccination has given the vulnerable population that resides in these sorts of settings. As of Thursday, 95 percent of residents 65 and older in Frederick County had been vaccinated.

In more hopeful news, local COVID-19 positivity and case levels have decreased dramatically over the past week and a half. On Thursday, Frederick County’s seven-day average positivity rate stood at 24.67 percent — compared to 28.08 percent last week — and its case rate was 123.50 per 100,000 residents, a drop of over 40 percent from last week.

Projections Brookmyer shared at last week’s health board meeting showed that the county could be logging over 1,500 new cases per day two or three weeks in the future. But those estimations have since significantly been downgraded — updated projections the health officer shared Thursday showed the county logging just over 600 new cases per day two or three weeks down the road.

“It’s still a very large number of people who are testing positive, but it’s a lot better than what the projection was last week,” Brookmyer remarked.

The county logged 335 new cases on Thursday.

Frederick Health Hospital — which shifted to crisis standards of care earlier this month in the face of severe staffing shortages and unprecedented patient volumes — finally had some positive news of its own to share on Thursday.

As of that evening, Frederick Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kathy Weishaar said the hospital was down to treating 90 patients with the virus. Earlier that day, it had been 88 — a number Weishaar was so surprised to see, considering the hospital had been treating over 100 patients on Wednesday, she had to verify it.

“I think we are finally starting to see perhaps a little downward trend of the overall hospital volume,” Weishaar said.

Still, the hospital’s intensive care unit continues to be full with 16 coronavirus patients, each of them on a ventilator. The facility continues to operate an overflow ICU, Weishaar noted, and the majority of patients who require this level of care are unvaccinated.

Of the 90 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, about a third are being treated for the disease, Weishaar said, while the rest were admitted with other conditions, only to receive an incidental coronavirus diagnosis.

Roughly two-thirds of the hospital’s coronavirus patients are unvaccinated, Weishaar said. Of those who have been vaccinated, only six had received a booster shot.

The next health board meeting will be held two weeks from now, at 6 p.m. on Feb. 3.