2 more Mainers die as another 110 coronavirus cases are reported across the state

By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff

This story will be updated.

Another two Mainers have died as health officials on Sunday reported 110 more coronavirus cases across the state.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 2,986. 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 3,095 on Saturday.

It’s the lowest single-day increase in new cases Maine has seen since Nov. 8, when only 92 were reported. That’s a dramatic slide in virus transmission from the dizzying heights seen just a month earlier when they ballooned above 800 a day. It is perhaps further evidence that the holiday surge has subsided, though Maine continues to see transmission well above the levels seen last fall.

Two Cumberland County residents have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 649.

Sunday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 42,529, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 42,419 on Saturday. 

Of those, 33,935 have been confirmed positive, while 8,594 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.

The new case rate statewide Sunday was 0.82 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 317.76.

Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 190.1, down from 195 a day ago, down from 269.6 a week ago and down from 620 a month ago. That rate has been steadily falling since Jan. 14, when it peaked at 625.6.

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, 1,484 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 Sunday was 11.09 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (4,609), Aroostook (1,227), Cumberland (11,948), Franklin (873), Hancock (852), Kennebec (3,462), Knox (612), Lincoln (538), Oxford (2,117), Penobscot (3,678), Piscataquis (241), Sagadahoc (848), Somerset (1,210), Waldo (566), Washington (692) and York (9,055) counties. Information about where an additional case was reported wasn’t immediately available.

As of Sunday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 27,576,340 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 484,250 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.