The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Saturday 343 cases of the new coronavirus and seven additional deaths, increasing the increase in the number of infections, even as health officials rushed to immunize the population faster than in many other states .
Maine’s cumulative cases increased to 25,245 on Saturday, of which 21,412 were confirmed by tests and 3,833 are considered probable cases of COVID-19.
Three hundred and fifty-eight people have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in Maine. The people who died on Saturday were a woman in her 90s from York County, along with six people from Cumberland County: two women in her 80s, two men in her 70s, a man in her 60s and a woman in her 70s.
Maine saw a continuing trend of high case count last week, with 702 new cases on Thursday and 700 on Friday. On Saturday, Maine’s seven-day average of new daily cases reached 529.3.
Despite the growing increase, Maine is one of the country’s fastest distributors of COVID-19 vaccines in proportion to its population, according to Bloomberg News. On Thursday, Maine gave the first dose of the Pfizer or Modern vaccine to 2.02% of its population, behind only 2.14% in South Dakota and 2.5% in West Virginia. Maine has used 51.1 percent of the vaccine doses provided by the federal government – more than any other state.
On Friday, Maine vaccinated 2.29% of its 1.3 million population. The high-speed delivery effort has advanced despite delays from Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program, which provided Maine with fewer doses than expected in the first few weeks of vaccine availability.
The first doses of the vaccine in Maine were for frontline health workers and high-risk residents, but in the next week the distribution may expand to some private doctors’ offices and health care facilities, public health officials said.
Meanwhile, state hospitals have seen relatively stable numbers of inpatients with COVID-19 – with the exception of the Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. There, at the largest hospital in eastern Maine, the average daily number of patients admitted to COVID-19 increased to 51.9 in the week ending Thursday. This is an increase of 44 the previous week and 26.6 the previous week.
County by county in Maine since the pandemic began, there were 2,728 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 696 in Aroostook, 7,570 in Cumberland, 454 in Franklin, 552 in Hancock, 1,879 in Kennebec, 373 in Knox, 308 in Lincoln, 1,125 in Oxford , 2,172 in Penobscot, 117 in Piscataquis, 389 in Sagadahoc, 751 in Somerset, 382 in Waldo, 385 in Washington and 5,345 in York.
By age, 13.6 percent of patients were under 20, while 18 percent were in their 20s, 14.6 percent in their 30s, 13.2 percent in their 40s, 15.6 percent percent in their 50s, 11.8 percent in their 60s, 6.9 percent were in their 70s and 6.2 percent were 80 or older.
Maine hospitals had 188 patients with COVID-19 on Saturday, 46 of whom were in intensive care and 17 on ventilators. The state had 101 intensive care unit beds available out of a total of 382 and 223 ventilators available out of 320. There were also 443 alternative ventilators.
Worldwide late Saturday afternoon, there were 84.4 million known cases of COVID-19 and 1.83 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 20.2 million cases and 348,942 deaths.
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