Maine sees new coronavirus cases dip below 100 for 1st time since early November
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
This story will be updated.
Another two Mainers have died as health officials on Tuesday reported 91 more coronavirus cases across the state.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 2,535. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. That’s down from 2,717 on Monday.
That marked the first time Maine has seen new cases slip below 100 for the first time since Nov. 8, when 92 were reported. It’s further evidence that the holiday surge is subsiding, even as cases still remain higher than they were last fall.
A Kennebec County resident and a York County resident have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 651.
Tuesday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 42768, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 42,677 on Monday.
Of those, 34,054 have been confirmed positive, while 8,714 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
The new case rate statewide Tuesday was 0.68 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 319.54.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 165.6, down from 183 a day ago, down from 237.4 a week ago and down from 600.3 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers in their 20s, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases and deaths have been recorded in women than men.
So far, 1,487 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.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Tuesday was 11.11 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (4,633), Aroostook (1,236), Cumberland (12,021), Franklin (875), Hancock (858), Kennebec (3,489), Knox (614), Lincoln (544), Oxford (2,124), Penobscot (3,695), Piscataquis (242), Sagadahoc (851), Somerset (1,217), Waldo (567), Washington (695) and York (9,107) counties.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 27,695,000 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 486,332 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.