Maine reports 359 new cases of COVID-19 as vaccination rate increases

Maine is accelerating the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations and, on Friday, reported a new daily record with 8,827 injections administered, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

The previous record was Thursday, with 7,584 first and second doses administered. Maine used to administer about 2,000 to 5,000 doses a day in the past few weeks.

The state reported 359 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and three additional deaths.

In addition, the Maine Department of Education announced updates to the state’s color-coded school reopening notices, including changing Cumberland County from a “yellow” to “green” designation.

Overall, Maine administered the COVID-19 vaccine 137,531 injections, including 102,773 first doses and 34,758 second doses. This means that 7.6% of the population received the first dose and 2.5% the second dose.

Although supplies remain limited, the Biden government announced that states would receive 16% more doses starting next week for the next three weeks. For Maine, this means that next week the state will receive 20,375 doses, an increase of 2,800 doses over the previous week.

As of Thursday, Maine had the eighth highest percentage of doses administered per 100 people in the United States, according to the Bloomberg News vaccine tracker, with 9.57 doses administered per 100 people. Alaska was the best in the country, with 15.09, while the national average was 8.3 doses per 100 people.

The rollout of the vaccine program continues to grow as the Biden administration announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would help establish mass vaccination sites.

The green designation given to schools in Cumberland County by DOE means that the risk of spreading COVID-19 is relatively low and schools can consider face-to-face education. A yellow designation means that there is a high risk of spreading COVID-19 and hybrid instruction is recommended.

For most of the school year, the yellow designation also meant that sports teams were not allowed to practice or participate in inter-school competitions, but the Maine Board of Directors announced last week that the policy would change and the color designations would only apply to personal learning rather than school based activities. Most school districts around Maine are offering hybrid instruction, regardless of color designation, due to their ability to meet safety requirements.

Three Maine counties, Androscoggin, Oxford and York, remain yellow due to 14-day new case rates and positivity rates that are above the state average. A fourth county, Franklin, was added to the list of “yellow” counties on Friday.

As of Thursday, more than 700 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in schools in Maine in the past 30 days and there were dozens of investigations open. Still, the Maine Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services said on Friday that transmission of the virus in schools remains low compared to the general population.

In the last 30 days, the rate of new cases is 34 per 10,000 employees and students, compared with 116 per 10,000 people across the state. This represents a rate of new cases in schools that is 30 percent lower than the state rate for the general population, according to the DOE.

Maine launched its expanded COVID-19 vaccination panel on Thursday, giving a breakdown of who received the vaccines by age, race, sex and county of residence.

The daily case count is another day of relatively lower cases compared to the beginning and mid-January, when the counts were usually above 600 per day. The 284 new cases reported on Thursday were the smallest number of days a week in a month. The case count is usually higher during the week and lower on weekends, as people are more likely to get tested during the week.

The seven-day positivity rate for molecular tests was 3.64 percent on Thursday, up from 5.89 percent on December 31. When fewer tests are returned with positive results, it indicates that there is less undetected COVID-19 and gives public health workers a better chance of controlling the virus by quarantining a greater percentage of those that can be contagious.

When Maine had case counts in the summer and early fall of about 30 cases a day, the rate of positivity was about 0.5 percent.

Governor Janet Mills on Thursday lifted a pandemic requirement that restaurants close for meals indoors at 9 pm because of positive case trends.

“We are starting to turn the corner with the post-holiday increase in COVID-19,” said Mills. “With these improved public health metrics and the end of the holiday, it is appropriate to eliminate the requirement for early closure.”

Overall, Maine recorded 38,813 COVID-19 cases and 570 deaths, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

This story will be updated.

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