Nearly 200 new COVID-19 cases reported in Maine and one more death

State health officials on Thursday reported 194 new cases of COVID-19 and one additional death, continuing a troubling three-week trend.

To date, there have been 8,396 confirmed or probable cases in Maine and 159 people have died. The 7-day average for daily cases rose to 165 on Thursday. That’s 118 cases a week ago, 59 cases two weeks ago and exactly five times the average of 33 cases a month ago. New cases have far exceeded recoveries and the number of active cases now stands at 1,962, the highest number Maine has seen.

Governor Janet Mills, along with her counterparts from other northeastern states, announced Thursday that interstate youth hockey activity will be suspended from Saturday, November 14 until December 31. Several outbreaks have been linked to youth hockey, which is considered a moderate risk activity according to Maine guidelines. The closure does not affect college or professional hockey activities.

The state had previously updated its community sports guidelines to push back all youth and high school hockey practices until December 14 and games until January 11.

With Thursday’s death, there have now been 13 deaths from COVID-19 between October 30 and November 12. There hadn’t been any in the previous two weeks.

Hospitalizations also hit their highest total since May. As of Wednesday, 59 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, including 16 in intensive care. Two weeks ago, only 15 people were in the hospital. Since the start of the pandemic, 553 people have been hospitalized at one time.

The number of intensive care beds available in Maine has grown from around 200 in June to just over 100 today. Hospitals are worried because in the spring most were keeping as many empty beds as possible in anticipation of a surge that never happened. Today, many beds are occupied by non-COVID patients.

New cases were reported Thursday in all counties in Maine except Piscataquis, a sign of the spread of the virus. Androscoggin County saw the largest increase, with 38 new cases, followed by Cumberland (30), York (28), Kennebec (22) and Penobscot, Hancock and Oxford (13 each).

Maine’s COVID-19 reproduction rate is now the highest in the country, according to a metric. The rt.live website, which uses status data from the COVID Tracking Project, estimates the average number of people infected by each infectious person – a key measure of how quickly the virus is spreading. If the R number is greater than 1.0, the virus will spread rapidly; if it is less than 1.0, infections will be slow. metric,

Maine’s R number is estimated to be 1.49, which is higher than any other state. From May 10 to September 25, Maine’s R-number was less than 1 – and by July it was the lowest in the country.

State health officials have expressed concern that the outbreak of cases was not caused by large epidemics, but by the spread of the community from small home gatherings, often where the mask wear and distance are less common.

There are active cases in all 16 counties and five counties in Maine have high or extensive community transmission, which is defined as a rate of new cases greater than or equal to 16 per 10,000 people in the past 28 days. They are: Franklin, Knox, Somerset, Waldo and Washington. Somerset has the highest rate – 30.31 per 10,000 population.

The counties of Androscoggin, Cumberland, Kennebec and York have moderate community transmission, defined as a rate of new cases of eight or more but less than 16 per 10,000 people.

The other counties – Hancock, Aroostook, Lincoln, Oxford, Sagadahoc, Penobscot and Piscataquis – have low or no community transmission, defined as a new case rate of less than eight per 10,000 people. Piscataquis County has the lowest rate in the state – 1.19 per 10,000 residents.

Gov. Janet Mills has reimposed some restrictions in recent weeks and tightened the state’s mask mandate for public places, but has resisted the type of lockdowns that took place in March and April.

Cases have increased in almost every other state, and the cooler weather has pushed more people indoors. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of cases in the United States is now over 10.4 million and the number of deaths is over 240,000.

This story will be updated

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