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The coronavirus continues to spread like wildfire in Maine, with new cases soaring everywhere, a record number of Mainers hospitalized with COVID-19 and the cumulative number of confirmed infections in the state rapidly approaching 10,000 .
While Maine continues to look better than many other states on some key metrics after keeping the virus at bay during the summer and early fall, it’s still a perilous time. And it has been especially perilous over the past three weeks in particular, as Maine has continued to see new triple-digit cases daily.
Transmission appears to be accelerating as frigid weather pushes more Mainers indoors and many plan to celebrate the holidays with friends and relatives – festive gatherings that could be ripe occasions for spreading the pathogen deadly. The prospect of a transmission during the holidays led Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday to warn Mainers against the Thanksgiving gatherings in person. On Thursday, she instituted 9 p.m. curfews at a number of businesses.
Here are five numbers that show how much the viral situation has worsened in Maine over the past few weeks:
6: The number of days it took for Maine to cross the threshold of 9,000 cases after reaching 8,000.
While Maine will soon reach the grim milestone of 10,000 total COVID-19 cases since last March, the most shocking development may be how quickly it gets there.
Between March and mid-October, it took the state a month or more to add each new increase of 1,000 cases. But this rate has clearly accelerated since the end of October, with the state going from 6,000 to 7,000 cases in 13 days; 7,000 to 8,000 in nine days; and 8,000 to 9,000 in just six.
Now, the state could surpass 10,000 total cases by this weekend after surpassing 9,000 last Sunday and 9,700 Thursday.
31.61: The percentage of Maine coronavirus cases the state recorded in November alone.
Just 18 days after the start of November, Maine recorded 3,077 new cases of the coronavirus – more than it recorded in any other full month of the pandemic. In October, the month with the second highest number of cases, the state recorded 1,281 new cases.
Health officials have highlighted a number of reasons for the strong growth, including an increasing number of gatherings indoors as colder weather makes it harder to see friends and family outside, the reopening of many types of businesses and institutions since the summer, the “fatigue pandemic” which can cause Mainers to abandon their protections to take precautions such as wearing a mask and cold, dry weather which can improve the ability of coronavirus droplets to spread through the air.
13: The number of days it took for November to become the third deadliest month in the pandemic.
The months of April and May marked dark stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Maine, with the state recording 51 and 37 coronavirus deaths, respectively. These counts came as the virus invaded long-term care facilities whose residents were responsible for the majority of COVID-19 deaths in Maine.
The death toll slowed after the spring, dropping to single digits in September and October. But that changed quickly in November. In just six days, he had already surpassed the entire month of October for the number of deaths. And 18 days after November, Maine has already recorded the same number of deaths it recorded in August, September and October combined.
With 24 deaths to date, November is already the third deadliest month in the pandemic to date. More tragedies could easily follow now that the state records a seven-day moving average of nearly 200 new cases a day, some in nursing homes.
Granted, Maine still has one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the country, but the pandemic took a deadly turn in Maine this month.
88: The number of Mainers hospitalized Thursday with the coronavirus.
Along with the rise in deaths, the number of Mainers hospitalized for COVID-19 reached new highs this month, setting a one-day record of 88 on Thursday, according to the Maine CDC.
As of October 25, the number of people in Maine hospitals with COVID-19 was in single digits. Prior to that, the last time the state’s COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeded only 20 was on July 8, when 22 people were in hospital.
For now, healthcare providers have said they are ready to deal with the continuing surge in COVID-19 cases and have learned to treat the virus more effectively since last spring. Thirty-five of the state’s 88 hospital patients were in intensive care as of Thursday, including 12 on ventilators. There are still 92 intensive care beds open in the state and 242 ventilators available.
But some hospital officials have said they could face a shortage of staff and protective supplies if they become overwhelmed, especially as cold and flu seasons will cause more patients to suffer. coronavirus-like symptoms. Hospitals may have to delay some optional services if enough workers fall ill. If the state’s two largest hospitals in Portland and Bangor fill up, they’re also ready to open satellite facilities in those cities.
15: The number of counties in Maine that recorded a new case of COVID-19 on Thursday.
During the time of the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Maine in the spring, only a handful of the state’s most populous counties – Cumberland, York and Androscoggin – regularly recorded more than one or two new cases per day , with outbreaks in places such as nursing homes and factories driving growth.
But just Thursday, 15 of Maine’s 16 counties recorded new cases of COVID-19, with the state registering a daily total of 217 new cases. Only Piscataquis County did not have one, and those numbers weren’t exceptional for this week.
This is because the virus has now become so prevalent in Maine that it is spreading between residents of small towns and towns with no known link to the outbreaks. However, the more COVID-19 circulates in the community, the more likely it is that new outbreaks will start to appear, said Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, after the discovery of 14 new outbreaks in the three last stretch of a day. These outbreaks will lead to even more cases, Shah said, calling the model a “vicious cycle.”
“The ground has been sown with an ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases, and we are now starting to see fixes in the form of epidemics emerging, all over the state,” he said.
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