State reports 680 new COVID-19 cases as hospitalizations decline

State health officials on Thursday reported another high number of daily COVID-19 cases, along with one additional death, but hospitalizations continue to decline steadily from their pandemic peak at the end of last month .

With 680 new cases reported, the seven-day daily average now stands at 556, up from 466 cases two weeks ago and 316 cases around the same time last month, according to data from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the new cases on Thursday, half were in people under the age of 40.

Since the pandemic reached Maine in March 2020, there have been 93,881 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, 2,569 people have been hospitalized at any given time and 1,066 people have died. In the past three days, the CDC has reported a total of 39 deaths, although 30 of them were discovered through periodic review of death certificates and occurred between September 11 and September 29.

Nationally, more than 700,000 Americans have now died from the virus, according to the US CDC.

The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Maine continues to drop sharply. As of Thursday, there were 152 people in the hospital, including 46 in intensive care and 23 on ventilation. In the past two weeks, hospitalizations have dropped by 45% and the number of intensive care patients has dropped by 80%.

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have declined across the country in recent weeks, especially in areas where the delta variant took hold earlier. But some states, including Maine, are still seeing the number of cases increase.

In recent weeks, Maine’s daily case reports have been plagued by a backlog of positive tests after a surge of cases overwhelmed the agency’s ability to screen cases every day to eliminate duplicates and follow-ups . But Maine CDC director Dr Nirav Shah said on Wednesday less than 100 outstanding cases were pending. The backlog stood at 2,500 tests.

According to the US CDC, the seven-day case rate per 100,000 people in Maine is 267, which ranks 17th among states during this period and is higher than the national rate of 204 cases per 100,000 people. . Another New England state, Connecticut, has the second lowest transmission rate in the past seven days, with just 80 cases per 100,000 people.

Maine and Connecticut have virtually identical vaccination rates, but Connecticut’s rate is more consistent across the state. In Maine, there are still large disparities between the southern coastal counties and the more rural interior counties. Shah said on Wednesday that large pockets of unvaccinated people in some of those counties are where the virus is spreading the most and also where people are getting sick enough to be hospitalized.

For example, among Mainers aged 12 to 39, the statewide vaccination rate is 62%. But Cumberland County’s rate is 77 percent and no other county exceeds 65 percent. On the other hand, five counties have an immunization rate of less than 50 percent in this age group.

Overall, Maine has now administered 882,120 second doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine. This represents 65.6% of all residents and 74.5% of eligible ages 12 and over.

Pfizer officially asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to approve its vaccine for children aged 5 to 11. If approved, the US CDC will then decide whether to recommend the shots for young people. According to Pfizer’s request, young children will receive one-third of the adult dose.

In addition, the state has so far given 38,443 third doses of Pfizer vaccine to older Mainers and those who are immunocompromised. The US CDC has recommended additional doses for these groups.

This story will be updated.

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