Maine records record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations

A record number of people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Maine on Monday amid the latest wave of the deadly coronavirus.

Hospitalizations have been increasing steadily for weeks and could continue to set new records based on trends in COVID-19 cases, especially in areas with lower vaccination rates. On Sunday, Maine tied the previous record of 207 hospitalizations – set at the peak of the wave last winter when only a fraction of the population had been vaccinated – to surpass it on Monday with 214 hospitalizations.

Dr Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, called Monday’s figure “another grim record.” Shah also cited a recent study released by the US CDC showing that unvaccinated people in Los Angeles County, California were 29 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than those fully vaccinated at the end. from the study period to the end of the period. July.

“Hospitals are overloaded,” Shah said on Twitter. “If you bet on a bed or an intensive care unit – let alone monoclonal antibodies – as a strategy rather than getting vaccinated, you are miscalculating. “

The number of people in intensive care units stood at 73 on Monday – down six from Sunday – and there were 33 people connected to ventilators. There were 58 intensive care beds available statewide.

Shah said more than 90 percent of all intensive care patients in Maine were unvaccinated, and 65 to 75 percent of all hospitalizations were in people who were not fully immunized.

Hospitals in Maine have struggled to keep pace with the late-summer wave of critically ill COVID-19 patients as the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread statewide. While the number of new cases was not available on Monday, the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in Maine stood at 485 at the end of last week, about five times the weekly average at the start. August.

Unlike earlier stages of the pandemic in Maine, the more rural and less populated counties in the interior of the state have much higher case rates than the more urban counties south of the coast.

Piscataquis County had the highest seven-day average, followed by Somerset, Penobscot, Franklin and Waldo counties. Per capita rates in Piscataquis County were almost quadruple those in Cumberland County and triple the rates in York County for the week ending Saturday.

But Penobscot County is currently experiencing the biggest spike in cases, averaging 110 cases per day for the previous week. And that trend is now being felt at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

The EMMC reported 56 COVID-19 patients as of Monday morning, up from an average of just 18 patients per day two months ago. System-wide, Northern Light Health was reporting 96 COVID-19 patients on Wednesday, including at least one patient in each of the other seven hospitals in the network and 11 patients being treated at home or in hospices.

MaineHealth, which operates eight hospitals in the state, reported a total of 52 COVID patients on Monday, including 28 at Maine Medical Center and 14 at Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford. This is a slight increase from the 49 COVID hospital patients in MaineHealth’s network on Friday.

Of the 27 people hospitalized in intensive care at MaineHealth hospitals on Monday, only three people had been fully vaccinated against the disease while 12 of 14 connected to ventilators had not been vaccinated.

Hospital officials have reported that their facilities are, indeed, strained under the pressure of having to treat this latest wave of COVID patients during an already busy time of year.

MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta has been operating consistently at 98-100% capacity in recent weeks, while Maine Medical Center in Portland has been forced to divert ambulances to other facilities for several days due to ‘a lack of space in the emergency department.

In addition to the steadily increasing number of people seriously ill with COVID, hospitals are also struggling with a bed bottleneck for patients discharged from hospital. Many nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and other long-term care facilities severely limit the number of new clients they accept – or have closed their doors to new patients – because they lack the staff needed to meet strict federal staff-to-resident ratio requirements. .

As of Monday, 73.4% of eligible Mainers aged 12 or older had received all of the doses required for a full vaccination, while 64.8% of the overall population of 1.3 million d ‘inhabitants had received a final dose. This percentage ranges from a high of 75.9% in Cumberland County to a low of 52.2% in Somerset County.

To date, the Maine CDC has tracked 83,910 confirmed or likely cases of COVID-19 since March 2020 and reported 984 deaths related to the viral disease. Despite the recent increase, Maine continues to have one of the lowest infection and death rates in the country, according to the New York Times tracking. Maine also had the third highest full vaccination rate in the country, according to Bloomberg.

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