10 more Mainers dies as another 597 coronavirus cases are reported across the state
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
This story will be updated.
Another 10 Mainers have died as health officials on Tuesday reported 597 more coronavirus cases across the state.
Tuesday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 26,565, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 25,968 on Monday.
Of those, 22,448 have been confirmed positive, while 4,117 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
A man and a woman in their 80s from Aroostook County, two men in their 70s from Cumberland County, a man in his 70s from Penobscot County, a woman in her 70s from Somerset County, and a woman in her 70s, a man in his 80s and two women in their 90s from York County have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 369, according to Maine CDC spokesperson Robert Long. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 524.1, up from 522.4 a day ago, up from 452 a week ago and up from 264.4 a month ago.
Health officials have warned Mainers that “forceful and widespread” community transmission is being seen throughout the state. Every county is seeing high community transmission, which the Maine CDC defines as a case rate of 16 or more cases per 10,000 people.
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.
So far, 1,117 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 191 are currently hospitalized, with 50 in critical care and 21 on ventilators.
Long said Tuesday that 35,536 Mainers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
A majority of the cases — 15,810 — have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Tuesday, there have been 1,216,216 negative test results out of 1,249,035 overall. Nearly 2.6 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 7,804 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths — 106 — have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (2,854), Aroostook (764), Franklin (487), Hancock (592), Kennebec (1,965), Knox (385), Lincoln (321), Oxford (1,195), Penobscot (2,305), Piscataquis (129), Sagadahoc (430), Somerset (786), Waldo (389), Washington (405) and York (5,730) counties. Information about where an additional 19 cases were reported wasn’t immediately available.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 20,831,913 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 353,926 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.