Maine CDC reports 357 new coronavirus cases, 20 more deaths

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday reported 357 cases of the novel coronavirus and 20 more deaths, mostly from the start of the month, as the state accelerates its vaccination schedule by extending eligibility to security officers public and to people aged 70 and over.

The state is also providing more doses of the vaccine to long-term care facilities. Public health officials reported on Friday giving 8,827 doses the day before – a record in Maine. As of Saturday, 108,519 Mainers had received their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and 36,837 had received a second, meaning there were a total of 7,825 new doses on Friday.

Cumulative coronavirus cases in the state jumped to 39,168 on Saturday. Of these, 31,567 have been confirmed by testing and 7,601 are considered probable cases of COVID-19. The seven-day average of new daily cases was 367.6 on Saturday.

Five hundred and ninety people have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in Maine. Eighteen of the 20 deaths reported on Saturday occurred earlier – between January 10 and 23 – and have now been attributed to COVID-19. Of those who died, 15 were women and 5 were men. Thirteen were 80 years of age or older, four were in their sixties, one in their sixties and two in their fifties. Two were from Androscoggin County, four from Aroostook, three from Cumberland, one from Kennebec, one from Oxford, five from Penobscot, one from Washington and three from York County.

The increased vaccine distribution has not been accompanied by more doses from the federal government – or at least not yet, state officials said on Friday. The Biden administration announced that starting next week, states will receive 16% more doses over the next three weeks.

Until that happens, Maine is allocating more doses from the same statewide supply.

The percentage of Maine’s population that received their first dose exceeded 8% on Saturday. The state’s population is 1.34 million, according to the US Census Bureau.

Also last week, state education officials moved Cumberland County’s risk category for school reopening to “green,” meaning the risk of the spread of COVID-19 is low enough for in-person instruction.

Until recently, a high-risk “yellow” designation meant that state officials recommended that schools avoid extracurricular activities such as school sports. But last week, the Maine Principals’ Association announced that it would take the color designations as recommendations only for in-person learning, and not for activities such as sports.

Positive case trends in Cumberland County and elsewhere led Gov. Janet Mills last week to lift a 9 p.m. statewide curfew on indoor dining. As of Monday, these businesses can resume their normal hours.

County by county in Maine since the start of the pandemic, there have been 4,302 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 1,129 in Aroostook, 11160 in Cumberland, 767 in Franklin, 773 in Hancock, 3102 in Kennebec, 577 in Knox, 468 in Lincoln, 1905 in Oxford, 3,408 in Penobscot, 200 in Piscataquis, 772 in Sagadahoc, 1,084 in Somerset, 507 in Waldo, 618 in Washington and 8,389 in York.

By age, 14.7% of patients were under 20, 17.9% in their twenties, 14.5% in their thirties, 13.1% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, 11.8 % in their 60s, 6.8% in their 70s, and 5.8% were 80 or older.

Of the 161 patients with COVID-19 in hospitals in Maine on Saturday, 51 were in intensive care and 27 on ventilators. The state had 93 intensive care unit beds out of a total of 391 and 228 ventilators available out of 320. There were also 443 reciprocating ventilators.

Worldwide as of late Saturday afternoon, there were more than 102.3 million known cases of COVID-19 and 2.2 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 26 million cases and 438,451 deaths.

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