Maine CDC reports 104 new COVID-19 cases, 3 additional deaths

State health officials reported an additional 104 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, along with three more deaths among Maine residents who contracted the viral disease.

The number of new coronavirus infections in Maine continues on its downward trend, with the seven-day average dropping from 234 new cases on February 10 to a daily average of 145 new cases in the week ending on Wednesday. That’s four times less than the peak, seven-day average of 625 new daily cases reported on January 15.

The total number of vaccine doses administered in Maine was 255,849 on Wednesday morning, an increase of about 6,000 doses since Tuesday. More than 13% of Maine’s population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, as state health officials are looking for residents aged 70 and over.

The three additional deaths reported on Wednesday have increased the total in Maine since last March to 654. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said all three individuals – two women and one man – were residents of Cumberland County who they were in their 80s.

Despite the improvement in numbers, Maine Governor Janet Mills extended the state’s emergency civil status statement for another 30 days on Wednesday, consistent with most other states. Mills used the state’s emergency declaration law last year to impose public health requirements, such as company restrictions, meeting size limits, testing or quarantine requirements for out-of-state visitors, and facial mask warrants for individuals in public environments.

“Maine continues to see improved public health metrics as we turn the corner with recent outbreaks,” said Mills in a statement. “It is still important, as we face a variant of the virus and work around the clock to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible, that the people of Maine continue to be careful. I urge all inhabitants of Maine to take the measures we know to keep everyone safe – wear your mask, wash your hands, be careful with the distance and avoid meetings. These things will keep us safe during the pandemic and give us a better chance of getting back to normal sooner. “

CAUTIONARY OPTIMISM

Maine and states across the country have seen an abrupt decline in new cases in recent weeks.

From early to mid-January, Maine experienced several days when new cases exceeded 700 or 800 cases, although Wednesday’s seven-day average of 145 is still twice that of early November and seven times that of In August. There were 91 people hospitalized across the state with COVID-19 on Wednesday – below the peak of 207 hospitalizations on January 13 – with 24 of those 91 in intensive care and nine connected to ventilators.

But state and national public health officials are concerned about potential outbreaks caused by more easily transmitted strains of the virus.

Lyndi Brechbuhler, a nurse who works at the Peaks Island health clinic, fills a syringe with the Modern COVID-19 vaccine before the start of an immunization clinic at the Brackett Memorial Church on Peaks Island on Sunday. Gregory Rec / Team photographer

On Tuesday, the Maine CDC reported a second infection with a variant first identified in the UK, known as B.1.1.7, which the survey shows is even more transmissible. Across the country, there were 1,277 cases of the UK variant in 42 states as of Tuesday, as well as more than 20 cases of other variants documented for the first time in South Africa and Brazil.

“There are reasons for optimism on the horizon,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine’s CDC, on Tuesday, noting declines in hospitalizations and deaths, along with increases in vaccinations. “The reason why my optimism is not unrestricted is because of these new variants.”

EXPANSION OF VACCINATIONS

Maine’s vaccination campaign, meanwhile, continues to target older Maine residents who face the greatest risk of serious complications or death if they contract COVID-19.

To date, a total of 255,849 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Maine. That number includes 180,465 first doses, as well as 75,384 second doses, according to the latest Maine CDC data.

Maine is currently in Phase 1B of its vaccination plan focused on individuals aged 70 and over and is expected to start offering vaccines to people aged 65 to 69 next month. More than 44 percent of the approximately 193,000 inhabitants of Maine in that group over 70 had received at least one dose by Wednesday, with nearly 7 percent fully vaccinated.

However, a small number of Maine residents aged 65 to 69 could be eligible, at the last second, for injections under new guidance from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

Doses should be administered within six hours of opening the vial to avoid damaging the vaccine. On Tuesday, DHHS launched a new “efficient and full use policy” for COVID vaccines that would allow clinic operators to offer “a small fraction of the doses available at the end of a clinic” to individuals who have not registered for inoculation in that day.

The first priority should be given to individuals aged 70 and over who are on a waiting list or have appointments scheduled for a later date. But if no one in that age group is immediately available, doses can be offered to individuals between the ages of 65 and 69 or, finally, to vaccination clinic employees or volunteers “in the order of old age”.

DHHS stated that exceptions to this policy will be considered “for islands without bridges, remote locations and other places where vaccine delivery to eligible individuals would be unviable without broader eligibility”.

“Requests for such exceptions will be rare and must be approved in advance,” says the guide.

On Tuesday, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey warned that his office would consider legal and administrative action against healthcare providers who administer vaccines to ineligible individuals. The rebuke was in response to several high-profile violations of these guidelines, including MaineGeneral offering vaccines to donors as part of an experimental clinic and MaineHealth vaccinating out-of-state contractors who were hired to fight a union campaign among nurses.

Dr. James Jarvis, who leads Northern Light Health’s COVID-19 incident command, said extra doses have not been an issue at his clinics across the state. Northern Light’s mass vaccination clinic at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor is delivering more than 1,000 vaccines a day and, with the recent opening of a second “pod” within the center of the arena, it could administer up to 5,000 a day once supplies allow.

Jarvis said that Northern Light only makes inquiries for the number of doses it has on hand for a given day. And unlike some other health care providers, Northern Light is not currently maintaining a waiting list for eligible individuals.

“We don’t anticipate that we will have an additional vaccine available at the end of the day,” Jarvis said.

MORE DOSES COMING

On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced plans to allocate an additional 2 million doses of vaccine to the states – increasing total distributions to 13.5 million – as well as one million additional doses sent to drugstore chains that carry vaccines. It was unclear how many additional doses would be reserved for Maine, however.

Maine predicted to receive 22,475 combined starting doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines this week. Second doses are tracked and shipped separately based on when they are scheduled to be administered. In addition, 24 pharmacies located at Walmart or Sam’s Club stores in Maine are expected to receive 4,800 doses of vaccines this week, as part of the clinics that were launched last week.

According to Bloomberg’s vaccine screening, Maine had the sixth highest vaccination rate in the country, with 13.2% of residents receiving at least one injection, slightly above the national average of 12.2%. Maine ranked 11th behind nine states and the District of Columbia in terms of the share of the total population (5.4 percent) that received both doses of the vaccine.

Vaccination hesitation, or reluctance to be inoculated, is a major concern across the country because experts estimate that it may be necessary for 70 percent or more of the population to be immunized against COVID-19 to prevent uncontrolled spread through ” herd immunity “.

Recent research conducted by the US Census Bureau suggests that inhabitants of Maine are more likely to want the COVID vaccine than their counterparts in most states. Approximately 62% of respondents said they would “definitely ‘get a vaccine as soon as it was available to them, which was in the top 10 nationally, but was lower than all other New England states except Connecticut. The national average was 54.8 percent, according to the Census Bureau.

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