Maine reports 259 new cases of COVID-19, 3 more deaths

Maine reported 259 new cases of COVID-19 and three additional deaths on Monday.

The 259 new cases follow 189 cases reported on Sunday and 324 on Saturday. Daily cases have not climbed to more than 800 in a day since January 15.

The daily seven-day average of new cases fell from 562.3 a week ago to 452.8 on Monday. A month ago, the seven-day average was 458.6. The peak – so far – during the pandemic was 624 on January 15.

Overall, there have been 37,046 cases of COVID-19 in Maine and 547 deaths.

Meanwhile, vaccine rollout continues, albeit at a much slower pace than public health officials had hoped, as vaccine production has yet to ramp up. Maine receives about 18,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine per week. The state’s population aged 70 and over, which Maine began immunizing last week, is 193,000.

As of Monday, Maine had administered 110,332 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, including 87,292 first doses and 23,040 second doses.

Northern Light Health – The parent company of Mercy Hospital in Portland and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, among others, on Monday announced a new hotline to call for vaccine appointments, 204-8551, for 70-year-olds and more. To book an appointment online, go to www.covidnorthernlighthealth.org/publicvaccine starting at 2 p.m. today.

MaineHealth, the parent company of Maine Medical Center in Portland and an extensive network of healthcare systems, has set up a number to call for appointments at 877-780-7545. For more information on all the healthcare providers where a patient can book an appointment, see www.maine.gov/covid19/vaccines/vaccination-sites.

For now, healthcare providers recognize that it can be difficult to make an appointment due to the limited supply of vaccines.

Dr Dora Anne Mills, head of health improvement at MaineHealth, said in a Facebook post Monday morning that “there is very little vaccine in Maine or elsewhere, compared to the number of those who have it. need.

“The vaccine is our ticket to more normalcy (probably a ‘new normal’). This is our ticket to finally celebrating the holidays together, embracing our loved ones and our kids going back to school full time, ”Mills wrote. “In the meantime, the vaccine provides us with an additional and critical layer of safety, to be added to other layers of safety, like masking, distancing, hand hygiene, not gathering and ventilation.”

Maine Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican and independent Angus King, participated in a call between a group of moderate senators and a White House official to discuss the 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. dollars proposed by the Biden administration, which includes many measures, such as funding the distribution of vaccines and 1,400 checks to families.

Collins said in a statement on Sunday that she believed the scope of the package should be reduced.

“While I support rapid additional funding for vaccine production, distribution and vaccinators, and for testing, it seems premature to consider a package of this size and scope,” Collins said in a statement.

This story will be updated.

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