Maine CDC reports 120 new COVID-19 cases, plus two deaths

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported 120 cases of the new coronavirus and two additional deaths after the continuing low case count prompted state officials to ease some restrictions on the pandemic last week.

The seven-day average of new daily cases dropped to 190.1, well below the peak of 625.3 on January 14, but still several times the low averages of summer and early fall. Spurred on by the recent drop in the number of cases, state officials moved all Maine counties to the lowest-risk “green” setting last week, meaning that all schools are considered safe for personal instruction, with some anti- infection.

Maine’s cumulative COVID-19 cases increased to 42,529 on Sunday. Of these cases, 33,935 were confirmed by tests and 8,594 are considered probable cases of COVID-19.

Six hundred and forty-nine people have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in Maine. The two deaths reported on Sunday were of 80-year-old women in Cumberland County.

Updated vaccination numbers were not yet available on Sunday morning, but on Saturday, Maine gave 172,725 people the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with an additional 70,757 having received a second dose, for a total of 243,482 cumulative vaccinations. This means that 12.85% of Maine’s 1.3 million people received their first dose.

York County, however, is lagging behind in delivering vaccines. The southernmost county in the state recorded the most cases per capita and about 20 percent of all cumulative cases since the start of the pandemic, but gave only 11 percent of the vaccine doses administered until Friday, according to Maine CDC statistics.

Neighboring counties of Cumberland and Sagadahoc inoculated more than 14% of its residents, while York County gave vaccines to only about 9%.

The gap in vaccination rates has frustrated York County officials, who note that the region has been an epicenter for the spread of the virus in recent months, but has only two vaccination clinics. They are located at Southern Maine Health Care hospital in Biddeford and York Hospital; for comparison, Cumberland County has eight clinics.

Along with the lack of dispensers is the lack of doses. State health officials say that, for the time being, it is not worth sending precious injections to places where they cannot be placed on weapons.

“I will not send doses to places where they cannot be administered,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine’s CDC, in response to a recent question about the vaccine’s distribution in York County. “I have to make sure that there is the capacity at the site to administer these doses; otherwise, sending a bunch of doses somewhere doesn’t help anyone. “

Shah added, however, that he hopes to help improve the distribution system in the county soon. And, by chance, a mass vaccination clinic is due to open in Sanford later this month. The clinic is scheduled to open at the old Marshalls store on Main Street.

County by county until Sunday, there were 4,609 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 1,227 in Aroostook, 11,948 in Cumberland, 873 in Franklin, 852 in Hancock, 3,462 in Kennebec, 612 in Knox, 538 in Lincoln, 2,117 in Oxford, 3,678 in Penobscot, 241 in Piscataquis, 848 in Sagadahoc, 1,210 in Somerset, 566 in Waldo, 692 in Washington and 9,055 in York.

By age, 15.2 percent of patients were under 20 years old, while 18 percent were in their 20s, 14.4 percent were in their 30s, 13.1 percent in their 40s, 15.3 percent in their 50s, 11.7 percent in their 60s, 6.7 percent were in their 70s and 5.7% were 80 or older.

Of 101 COVID-19 patients in Maine hospitals on Sunday, 28 were in intensive care and 10 were on ventilators. The state had 112 beds of intensive care units available out of a total of 389, and 237 ventilators available from 319. There were also 446 alternative ventilators.

Worldwide, on Sunday night, there were more than 108.7 million known cases of COVID-19 and nearly 2.4 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 27.6 million cases and 485,300 deaths.

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