Maine CDC reports 120 new COVID-19 cases, two more deaths

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday on 120 cases of the new coronavirus and two additional deaths.

The seven-day average of new daily cases dropped to 190.1, well below the high of 625.3 on January 14, but still several times the low averages of summer and early fall. Encouraged by the recent drop in the number of cases, government officials put all provinces in Maine ‘green’ to the lowest risk last week, meaning all schools are considered safe for personal education, with some precautions against infection.

Maine’s cumulative COVID-19 cases rose to 42,529 on Sunday. Of these cases, 33,935 were confirmed by tests and 8,594 are considered probable cases of COVID-19.

Six hundred and forty-nine people have died from COVID-19 since the Maine pandemic began. The two deaths reported Sunday were from 80-year-old women in Cumberland County.

Updated vaccination numbers were not yet available Sunday morning, but as of Saturday, Maine had given 172,725 people the first dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, with an additional 70,757 receiving a second dose for a total of 243,482 cumulative vaccinations. . That means 12.85 percent of Maine’s 1.3 million people received their first dose.

However, York County has lagged behind in the distribution of vaccines. The country’s southernmost country has recorded the most cases per capita since the onset of the pandemic and about 20 percent of all cumulative cases, but according to Maine CDC statistics, it gave only 11 percent of the vaccine doses administered since Friday.

Adjacent provinces of Cumberland and Sagadahoc vaccinated more than 14 percent of their residents, while York County gave only about 9 percent of vaccines.

The backlog in vaccine figures has frustrated York County officials, who note that the region has been a hub for viral spread for the past few months, but still has only two vaccination clinics. It is located in Southern Maine Health Care Hospital in Biddeford and in York Hospital; by comparison, Cumberland County has eight clinics.

Hand in hand with the lack of distributors is a lack of doses. State health officials say it is not worth it for now to send precious shots to places where it cannot be placed in the arms.

“I’m not going to send doses to places where it can not be administered,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said in response to a recent question about the distribution of vaccines in York County. ‘I have to make sure there are doses on the ground; otherwise no one helps anything with something. ‘

However, Shah added that he hopes to help improve the distribution system in the country soon. And as it happens, a mass vaccination clinic is expected to open in Sanford later this month. The clinic is expected to open in the former Marshalls store off Main Street.

Nationwide per province as of Sunday, there were 4,609 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 1,227 in Aroostook, 11,948 in Cumberland, 873 in Franklin, 852 in Hancock, 3,462 in Kennebec, 612 in Knox, 538 in Lincoln, 2,117 in Oxford , 3,678 in Penobscot, 241 in Piscataquis, 848 in Sagadahoc, 1,210 in Somerset, 566 in Waldo, 692 in Washington, and 9,055 in York.

By age, 15.2 percent of patients were younger than 20, while 18 percent were in their twenties, 14.4 percent in their thirties, 13.1 percent were in their 40s, 15.3 percent were in their 50s, 11, 7 percent were in their 60s, 6.7 percent were in their 70s, and 5.7 percent were 80 or older.

Of the 101 patients who had COVID-19 Sunday in Maine hospitals, 28 were in intensive care and 10 in ventilators. The state has 112 beds available for intensive care units, with a total of 389 and 237 fans out of 319. There were also 446 alternative fans.

There were more than 108.7 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 2.4 million deaths worldwide on Sunday night, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 27.6 million cases and 485,300 deaths.

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