360 more COVID-19 cases reported over 3 days

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 360 new cases of COVID-19 over a three-day period Tuesday as the delta variant continues to increase cases in Maine and across the country.

The high figure reflects test results reported on Saturday, Sunday and Monday rather than a single-day total. But Maine’s seven-day average has increased more than seven-fold in one month. The daily average for the week ending Tuesday stood at 138, the highest level since late May.

Maine CDC investigators are also opening more investigations into outbreaks – defined as three or more cases with an epidemiologic link – including some in long-term care facilities or assisted living facilities.

A spokesperson for the Maine CDC said on Tuesday there had been 21 cases among 18 residents and three staff at Capitol City Manor, an assisted living facility in Augusta, since the investigation began on July 21. Robert Long said testing was ongoing and there had been no new positive cases at the Augusta facility over the past week.

A representative for Capitol City Manor declined to comment on Tuesday. The institution’s most recent record with the Maine CDC, dating from the end of June, showed that all 16 staff at Capitol City Manor had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Maine CDC had a total of 10 outbreak investigations opened on Tuesday. They included Maine Medical Center in Portland (nine cases), Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast (eight cases), Gorham House (four cases), Zion Pentecostal Church in Mattawamkeag (13 cases), Camp Caribou (three cases), Camp Laurel South (three cases), Biddeford Recreation Department Camp (three cases), Allspeed Cyclery and Snow Shop in Portland (five cases) and Pratt & Whitney (31 cases). The Pratt & Whitney business takes place over a period of several months, Long said.

At the height of the pandemic in late 2020 and early 2021, the Maine CDC had dozens of outbreak investigations open statewide, including hundreds of individual cases.

No additional deaths were reported on Tuesday. Since the pandemic began in March 2020, the Maine CDC has followed 71,666 confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 and reported at least 901 deaths related to the disease. New hospitalization figures were not released Tuesday, but as of Monday morning, 47 people were hospitalized statewide with the viral illness and 23 were in intensive care.

The highly transmissible delta variant appears to be behind much of the new outbreak in Maine and across the country, especially among the unvaccinated.

As of July in Maine, 86 percent of 115 positive test results analyzed using genomic sequencing were identified as the delta variant. Nationally, the delta variant was identified in 93% of cases sequenced at the end of July.

According to case rate measurements used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, masks are recommended in indoor public places for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people in 13 of Maine’s 16 counties. The recommendation, which was adopted by the Maine CDC, is based on a community transmission rate of at least 50 cases per 100,000 people in those counties.

Androscoggin, Aroostook, Cumberland, Hancock, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, Penobscot, Somerset, Washington and York counties all have substantial transmission levels, based on Maine CDC case data updated Tuesday. Waldo and Piscataquis counties had high transmission rates.

Waldo County has become the newest hotspot for COVID-19 cases in Maine, with new seven-day case rates that were four to five times higher than in Cumberland and York counties.

At the same time, the state’s vaccination rate is also slowly rising upward after plateauing for several weeks.

On Monday, the Maine CDC reported that the number of shots administered daily increased 12% between July 30 and Sunday. But the 1,673 injections administered daily for the week ending Sunday are only a fraction of the daily total during the busiest time of last spring.

Maine currently has the third highest vaccination rate in the country – behind Vermont and Massachusetts – with 64% of all residents considered fully vaccinated, according to the Bloomberg tracking. On Monday, the Mills administration announced that more than 80% of Maine residents aged 18 or older had received at least one injection of the vaccine.

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