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Eight more Mainers have died as health officials on Thursday reported 808 more cases of the coronavirus statewide.
Thursday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 31,958, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This is an increase from 31,150 on Wednesday.
Of those, 26,334 were confirmed positive, while 5,624 were classified as “probable cases,” reported the Maine CDC.
One Aroostook County resident, two Cumberland County residents, three Penobscot County residents, and two York County residents succumbed to the virus, bringing the toll to 461. Almost all of the deaths were in Mainers over 60 years old.
This is the second time in as many days that Maine has seen new cases rise above 800. On Wednesday, Maine saw new cases climb to a new high – 824 – the first time since the start of the pandemic when they have exceeded 800.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 622.4, down from 582.1 a day ago, down from 488.4 a week ago, and up from 364.1 a month ago. Before this surge began in late October, Maine’s seven-day average was hovering in the 1930s.
The Maine CDC continues to report high and widespread levels of community transmission, defined as a case rate of 16 or more per 10,000 people, even in counties once largely untouched by the worst of the pandemic.
There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and at least 25 percent of these are neither related to known cases nor to travel.
So far, 1,217 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Of these, 193 are currently hospitalized, including 63 in intensive care and 23 on a ventilator.
As of Thursday, 66,487 Mainers were vaccinated against the coronavirus, of which 10,132 received two doses.
A majority of the cases – 19,064 – have been in Mainers under the age of 50, while more cases have been reported in women than in men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Thursday, there were 1,312,811 negative test results out of 1,351,830 in total. About 2.8 percent of all tests came back positive, according to the most recent data from the Maine CDC.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 9,436 cases have been reported and the bulk of deaths from the virus – 115 – have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (3462), Aroostook (951), Franklin (545), Hancock (659), Kennebec (2383), Knox (462), Lincoln (378), Oxford (1485), Penobscot ( 3696), Piscataquis (152), Sagadahoc (575), Somerset (907), Waldo (415), Washington (466) and York (6,973). Information on where 13 additional cases were reported was not immediately available.
As of Thursday evening, the coronavirus had sickened 23,253,252 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as 387,910 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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