Maryland health officials confirmed 848 new cases of the coronavirus and 43 more deaths due to the disease Tuesday as they opened a call center with hundreds of workers to contact those who have tested positive and those they may have infected. .

The idea behind so-called contact tracing is to break the chain of infection by asking those with the virus or who may have the virus to stay home. The state now has almost 1,400 people at the state call center and local health departments making the calls, which will be coordinated through a data management system. .

While the total hospitalization rate decreased by 26 people, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units grew by two to 481 patients.

He said since the state started moving into the first phase of his three-phase reopening plan in mid-May, hospitalization rates have decreased, the infection positivity rate decreased and access to testing has increased.

Meanwhile, the Maryland Department of Health said it is launching an educational campaign about contact tracing using social media, public service announcements and other means to alert people that calls may be coming — with “MD COVID” on the caller ID.

The statistics continue to show that a little more than half of all confirmed COVID-19 cases, 27,284, were diagnosed in the D.C.