6 more Mainers die as another 313 coronavirus cases reported across the state
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
This story will be updated.
Another six Mainers have died as health officials on Monday reported 313 more coronavirus cases across the state.
Monday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 29,611, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 29,298 on Sunday.
Of those, 24,679 have been confirmed positive, while 4,932 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
Two Aroostook County residents, a Waldo County resident and two York County residents have succumbed to the virus. Additional details about a sixth death weren’t immediately available. The statewide toll stands at 438. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
Monday’s report marked a slight uptick in new cases from Sunday, when 279 were reported. That makes it the second day in a row that saw new cases sink below 400 after a six-day streak of new cases surging above that mark and comes after Maine set a new record high of 782 on Friday.
Nonetheless, that early-week dip in new cases remains well above the lows Maine saw before a monthslong surge in virus transmission began in late October, bringing high levels of community transmission, which the Maine CDC defines as a case rate of 16 or more cases per 10,000 people, even to counties once largely spared the worst of the pandemic.
There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 521.7, down from 530.9 a day ago, down from 522 a week ago and up from 336.3 a month ago.
So far, 1,171 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Information about those who are currently hospitalized wasn’t immediately available.
A majority of the cases — 17,627 — have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Friday, there have been 1,251,474 negative test results out of 1,286,695 overall. Nearly 2.7 percent of all tests have come back positive, the most recently available Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 8,691 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths — 111 — have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (3,207), Aroostook (868), Franklin (514), Hancock (625), Kennebec (2.202), Knox (417), Lincoln (357), Oxford (1,328), Penobscot (2,571), Piscataquis (143), Sagadahoc (510), Somerset (856), Waldo (403), Washington (432) and York (6,474) counties. Information about where an additional 13 cases were reported wasn’t immediately available.
As of Monday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 22,410,069 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 374,341 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.