The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 462 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, along with four additional deaths, but there are signs that the spread may be slowing.
The 7-day average for daily cases has dropped from 620 to 459 in the past two weeks, or an incubation period, but is still slightly above 448 this month last month and from 221 two months ago.
Across the country, cases are also declining, from an average of 240,000 two weeks ago to about 165,000 this week. Hospitalizations also decreased by about 16% during that period. The director of the new United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said during the Biden administration’s first COVID-19 press conference on Wednesday that she is “encouraged by these trends”, but case rates remain high and more vigilance is needed.
There have been 38,170 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 and 562 deaths since the pandemic arrived in Maine just over 10 months ago, and 16,290 of those cases have been reported in the last month alone. New cases were reported on Wednesday in all Maine counties, led by Cumberland County at 144 and York County at 60.
January was an especially deadly month. As of December 31, there were 347 deaths across the state. Since then, another 215 deaths have been reported, although some of them actually occurred in December, but were not reported or confirmed by the CDC immediately. Across the country, there were at least 422,000 COVID-19-related deaths, or as Maine CDC director Dr. Nirav Shah pointed out on Tuesday, more than the number of American military personnel who died during World War II .
Hospitalizations dropped from 11 to 183 on Wednesday. Of these, 51 people were in intensive care and 30 on a ventilator. The number of hospitalizations remained consistently high for more than a month, ranging from a minimum of 177 people on December 30 to a maximum of 207 on January 13.
Meanwhile, Maine’s vaccination rate of 8.2 doses per 100 people is the tenth highest in the country. On Wednesday, 92,498 people received one dose and 28,700 – or about 2.5% of residents over 18 – received both doses. The state has started vaccinating older residents and those with high-risk health conditions as part of Phase 1B, but this group has almost 200,000 people and the supply is limited.
Northern Light Health, the parent company of Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and Mercy Hospital in Portland, among others, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor at a mass vaccination site. The site will be launched next Tuesday and will have the capacity to vaccinate up to 2,000 people a day.
Northern Light is already vaccinating older Mainers as part of Phase 1A at smaller sites.
The Biden government announced on Tuesday that it would increase allocations to states by up to 16% next week, but it is not yet known how much Maine can receive. In addition, the new administration said it is close to securing an additional 200 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which would bring the US to 600 million doses by summer, enough to vaccinate all people currently considered eligible.
This story will be updated.
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