Maine CDC again reports more than 200 daily cases of COVID-19

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday reported 220 new cases of coronavirus and no additional deaths, ending a week when state officials pushed their vaccine schedule to include all adults from April 19.

State officials also announced on Friday that people aged 50 and over could receive doses starting on Tuesday, anticipating the increase in federal shipments of COVID-19 vaccines. Previously, the schedule predicted that people in their 50s would become eligible on April 1.

Maine’s cumulative COVID-19 cases increased to 48,292 on Saturday. Of these, 37,310 were confirmed by testing and 10,982 are considered probable cases of COVID-19. The seven-day average of new daily cases rose to 205.1 on Saturday.

Seven hundred twenty-eight people have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in Maine.

The Biden government has announced plans to deliver enough doses to make all Americans eligible by May 1, prompting Maine and other states to speed up their schedules.

“Maine has been working around the clock to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible,” Governor Janet Mills said in a statement on Friday. “As we continue to make progress, with more appointments available and an increase in offer expected in the coming weeks, we believe it is appropriate to speed up our schedule and make more people eligible earlier.”

Mills warned Mainers that nominations may not be immediately available to all newcomers, as the system expands to take on more capacity.

Maine health officials and vaccine providers also reported a worrying trend for unfilled vaccines after the state expanded eligibility for people in their 60s earlier this month. Even so, the state had already given the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to more than a quarter of its residents on Saturday morning.

On Saturday, 359,548 Mainers received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 215,408 received the final dose. Out of the Maine population of 1.3 million, 26.75 percent received their first dose, according to Maine CDC statistics.

The numbers for advance reservations for hotels, restaurants, camps and other locations in Maine are skyrocketing, indicating that the state may have a tourism season at the same level as 2019, a historically strong year.

Tourist visits to Maine fell 27 percent last year, to a total of about 10 million visits less than 2019. Direct tourism spending fell from $ 6.5 billion to $ 4.8 billion, according to the Maine Office of Tourism.

But this year Mills announced that visitors from all New England states are exempt from testing or quarantine restrictions. This exemption will extend to the rest of the country until May 1, with the exception of any states that public health officials consider too risky for the spread of COVID-19.

County by county by Saturday, there were 5,090 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 1,348 in Aroostook, 13,495 in Cumberland, 958 in Franklin, 989 in Hancock, 4,073 in Kennebec, 758 in Knox, 628 in Lincoln, 2,387 in Oxford, 4,337 in Penobscot, 373 in Piscataquis, 937 in Sagadahoc, 1,315 in Somerset, 673 in Waldo, 750 in Washington and 10,181 in York.

By age, 15.9 percent of patients were under 20, while 18.1 percent were in their 20s, 14.4 percent were in their 30s, 13.2 percent were in their 40s , 15.2 percent were in their 50s, 11.6 percent were in their 60s, 6.3 percent were in their 70s and 5.3% were 80 or older.

Of the 80 patients with COVID-19 in Maine hospitals on Saturday, 20 were in intensive care and 10 were on ventilators. The state had 99 beds of intensive care units available out of a total of 390 and 250 ventilators available from 319. There were also 446 alternative ventilators.

Worldwide, on Saturday afternoon, there were 122.5 million known cases of COVID-19 and more than 2.7 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 29.7 million cases and 541,513 deaths.

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