This story will be updated.
Maine set another record with 753 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday and eight more deaths.
Wednesday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 20,491. Of these, 17,695 were confirmed positive, while 2,796 were classified as “probable cases”, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency revised Tuesday’s cumulative total to 19,738, down from 19,743, meaning there was an increase of 748 over the previous day’s report. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to be non-coronavirus, or coronavirus cases that do not involve Mainers. These are removed from the cumulative state total. Bangor Daily News reports on the number of new cases reported to the Maine CDC in the previous 24 hours, rather than the increase in cumulative daily cases.
A resident of Androscoggin County, two residents of Cumberland County, a resident of Oxford County and four residents of York County succumbed to the virus, bringing the death toll across the state to 311. Almost all deaths occurred in Mainers over 60 years old.
New cases have been reported in Androscoggin (60), Aroostook (27), Cumberland (183), Franklin (20), Hancock (8), Kennebec (39), Knox (12), Lincoln (9), Oxford (75), Penobscot (90), Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (14), Somerset (17), Waldo (6), Washington (18) and York (166) counties, show state data. Information on where eight more cases were reported was not immediately available.
The seven-day average for new cases of coronavirus is 460.7, up from 431 the previous day, 434.1 the previous day and 187 the previous month.
Wednesday marked yet another record-breaking single-day increase in coronavirus cases, breaking the previous record – 613 – set just a week ago. It is the second time that new cases exceed 600 and the seventh time in the last 10 days when they exceed 400.
Health officials have warned Mainers that “strong and widespread” community transmission is being observed across the state. Each county is seeing high transmission in the community, which Maine’s CDC defines as a rate of 16 or more cases per 10,000 people.
There are two criteria for establishing transmission in the community: at least 10 confirmed cases and at least 25 percent of them are not linked to known cases or trips.
So far, 1,000 Maine residents have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Information on people currently hospitalized was not immediately available.
Meanwhile, 155 more Maine residents have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing the total reported recoveries to 11,039. This means that there are at least 9,141 confirmed and “probable” cases active in the state, up from 8,556 on Tuesday.
Maine CDC data is likely to underestimate the actual number of recoveries, as investigators have been struggling to keep up with the increase in virus transmission, making it difficult for them to track previous cases to confirm recoveries. Instead, the Maine CDC is only releasing data on recoveries directly reported to it. Underreported recoveries also affect the estimated number of probable active cases across the state.
Most cases – 12,018 – occurred in Mainers under the age of 50, while more cases were reported in women than in men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Tuesday, there were 1,100,636 negative test results out of 1,126,503 overall. About 2.2 percent of all tests were positive, show the most recent data available from the Maine CDC.
Coronavirus hit most heavily in Cumberland County, where 6,110 cases were reported and where most virus deaths – 90 – were concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (2,333), Aroostook (459), Franklin (431), Hancock (484), Kennebec (1,524), Knox (319), Lincoln (255), Oxford (1,007), Penobscot (1,748), Piscataquis (101), Sagadahoc (323), Somerset (669), Waldo (353), Washington (324) and York (4,042) counties. Information on where nine additional cases were reported was not immediately available.
As of Wednesday morning, the coronavirus had infected 18,237,191 people in all 50 states, in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands, in addition to causing 322,849 deaths, from according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.