The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 343 cases of the new coronavirus and seven additional deaths on Saturday, contributing to the growing increase in infections, even though health officials want to immunize the population faster than in many other states.
Maine’s cumulative cases rose to 25,245 on Saturday, of which 21,412 were confirmed by tests and 3,833 are considered probable cases of COVID-19.
Three hundred and fifty-eight people have died with COVID-19 since the Maine pandemic began. The people who allegedly died Saturday were a woman in her 90s from York County, along with six people from Cumberland County: two women in their 80s, two men in their 70s, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 70s.
Maine has seen a steady trend of high numbers of cases over the past week, with 702 new cases on Thursday and 700 on Friday. On Saturday, Maine’s seven-day average of new cases reached 529.3 daily.
Despite the rising increase, Maine is, according to Bloomberg News, one of the country’s fastest distributors of COVID-19 vaccines. As of Thursday, Maine had given the first dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to 2.02 percent of its population, just behind 2.14 percent of South Dakota and 2.5 percent of West Virginia. Maine already uses 51.1 percent of the vaccine doses provided by the federal government – more than any other state.
On Friday, Maine vaccinated 2.29 percent of the population of 1.3 million. The speed-distribution effort continued despite delays by Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccination program, which provided fewer doses to Maine than expected during the first few weeks of vaccine availability.
Health officials said the first vaccine doses in Maine went to health workers and residents at greatest risk, but in the coming week the spread of private medical practices and assistance facilities could be expanded.
Meanwhile, state hospitals have seen relatively stable numbers of COVID-19 inpatients – with the exception of the Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. There, in eastern Maine’s largest hospital, the daily average COVID-19 inpatients rose to 51.9 for the week ending Thursday. It is higher than 44 the previous week and 26.6 the week before.
Per province in Maine since the beginning of the pandemic there have been 2,728 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 696 in Aroostook, 7,570 in Cumberland, 454 in Franklin, 552 in Hancock, 1,879 in Kennebec, 373 in Knox, 308 in Lincoln, 1,125 in Oxford, 2,172 in Penobscot, 117 in Piscataquis, 389 in Sagadahoc, 751 in Somerset, 382 in Waldo, 385 in Washington, and 5,345 in York.
By age, 13.6 percent of patients were younger than 20, while 18 percent were in their twenties, 14.6 percent in their thirties, 13.2 percent in their 40s, 15.6 percent in their 50s, 11.8 percent in their 60s, 6.9 percent were in their 70s, and 6.2 percent were 80 or older.
Maine hospitals on Saturday had 188 patients with COVID-19, 46 of whom were in intensive care and 17 in ventilators. The state has 101 beds available for intensive care units, with a total of 382 and 223 ventilators out of 320. There were also 443 alternative ventilators.
There were 84.4 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.83 million deaths worldwide late Saturday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 20.2 million cases and 348,942 deaths.
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