Maine Reports 47 New COVID-19 Cases, 5 More Deaths Wednesday

Maine health officials on Wednesday reported 47 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional deaths, continuing a recent upward trend in the number of cases.

After crater cases in June and early July, Maine, like the rest of the country, has seen an increase in the number of cases, although the increases here are smaller than in many parts of the country.

“Fortunately, the increase in Maine is less than the weight of the increase in the rest of the country… and this is no doubt a function of our very high vaccination rate,” Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday in an interview.

Shah said he and his team are watching trends closely, as they have been throughout the pandemic, and that restrictions are unlikely to be reinstated anytime soon.

As of Wednesday, the seven-day average of daily new cases in Maine stood at 3.7 per 100,000 people, the seventh lowest in the country, and well below that of states with low vaccination rates that suffer from a summer wave. Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri have case rates in the 30s per 100,000 population, while Florida has the worst outbreak of COVID-19 with 55.1 cases per 100,000 population. Public health experts say the outbreaks are fueled by the delta variant circulating among unvaccinated populations.

Since the start of the pandemic, Maine has recorded 69,674 cases of COVID-19 and 887 deaths.

On the vaccination front, 803,750 people in Maine have received their final dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, representing 59.8% of the state’s 1.3 million people. Maine continues to have one of the best vaccination rates in the country. Maine has the third highest rate of its fully vaccinated residents, behind Vermont and Massachusetts.

This story will be updated

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