Correction: This story originally stated that 11 people died between Friday and Saturday. The number is actually 7.
7 more Mainers died while health officials on Saturday reported 344 new cases of coronavirus across the state.
Saturday’s report raises the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 25,245, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than 24,901 on Friday.
Of these, 21,412 were confirmed positive, while 3,833 were classified as “probable cases”, reported the Maine CDC.
The death toll across the state is now 358.
New cases have been reported in Androscoggin (61), Aroostook (79), Cumberland (337), Franklin (3), Hancock (2), Kennebec (67), Knox (3), Lincoln (7), Oxford (10), Penobscot (122), Sagadahoc (2), Somerset (8), Waldo (2), Washington (8) and York (315) counties, show state data. Information on 19 additional cases was not available.
So far, 1,091 Maine residents have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. As of Saturday, 177 people were hospitalized, 48 in critical care and 19 in ventilators.
Another 64 people recovered from the coronavirus, bringing the total number of Mainers who recovered to 11,438. This means that there are at least 13,449 active cases in the state, up from 12,480 on Thursday.
As of Friday, 30,877 Maine residents have been vaccinated against COVID-19, or 2.02 percent of the population. Maine ranks third in the country for the vaccination rate according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, second only to West Virginia with 2.50 percent and South Dakota with 2.14 percent. The fast pace occurs despite the state receiving thousands of doses less than expected.
There were 1,177,522 negative test results out of 1,207,730 in total. About 2.4 percent of all tests were positive, data from the Maine CDC show.
Coronavirus hit most heavily in Cumberland County, where 7,570 cases were reported and where the bulk of virus deaths – 104 – were concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (2,728), Aroostook (696), Franklin (454), Hancock (552), Kennebec (1,879), Knox (373), Lincoln (308), Oxford (1,125), Penobscot (2,172), Piscataquis (117), Sagadahoc (389), Somerset (751), Waldo (382), Washington (385) and York counties (5,345). Information on where 19 additional cases were reported was not immediately available.
As of Saturday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 20,136,701 people in all 50 states, in the district of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands, in addition to causing 347,870 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.