New cases of COVID-19 hit 500 for the fourth consecutive day Friday, while Maine reported 572 cases and five additional deaths.
The seven-day average of daily new cases stands at 446.6, compared to 326.4 a week ago and 199.9 a month ago.
Of the new cases reported Friday, people under 30 accounted for 41 percent, and those in their thirties and forties accounted for 33 percent. Thirteen percent of the cases occurred in Mainers older than 60 years.
Since the pandemic began, Maine has recorded 56,525 cases of COVID-19 and 763 deaths.
The state is rushing to vaccinate its population in an effort to dismantle business before congestion reaches new heights.
Maine is now the fastest state in the country to fully vaccinate its population, according to the Bloomberg News vaccine survey, with nearly 31 percent of the state’s 1.3 million residents receiving either doses of Moderna or Pfizer vaccinations or the one shot vaccine vaccine Johnson & Johnson received. . The U.S. average is 23.6 percent fully vaccinated, while Georgia is the state that vaccines the slowest people, with 17.2 percent receiving their final doses.
Maine is the second fastest in the country, with the population receiving at least the first dose, the second to New Hampshire.
As of Thursday, 551,235 people, or 41 percent of the Maine population, had received their first dose, while 412,852, or 30.7 percent, had received a final dose of COVID-19.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday that new variants, which are more transmissible and cause worse cases, are a likely factor in the increasing number of cases in Maine, although the vaccines work well against the variant.
As of Thursday, Maine has reported 30 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant originally detected in the United Kingdom, three cases of the South African variant B.1.351 and one case of P1, the Brazilian variant. The actual number of variants circulating is much higher than reported because states perform only the genomic sequence needed to identify the variants on a small percentage of positive tests.
The increase in cases may also be related to travel, people not complying with pandemic safety rules, weather patterns and other reasons, Shah said.
“Usually it’s a constellation of factors, not one thing,” Shah said.
This story will be updated.
“Previous
MECA students dispute college concerns over Portland’s social services plan
Next »
Related stories
Invalid username / password.
Check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. After you submit your account email, we will send you an email with a refund code.