‘Strained to the gills’: Even with COVID numbers lower than last year, Maryland hospitals face capacity problems

This time last year, Maryland hospitals were in dire straits. The number of people infected with COVID-19 in state hospitals hit 3,462 on Jan. 11, 2022, a pandemic peak that has not been approached since. One-third of the state’s acute care hospitals were operating on “crisis standards of care,” a set of emergency protocols that allowed clinicians to prioritize the sickest of patients. Now, with 835 people hospitalized with the respiratory illness statewide as of Thursday, according to the Maryland Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard, the situation isn’t an emergency the way it was last year.