The downward trend continues with 147 new COVID-19 cases in Maine, 2 deaths

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday reported 147 new cases of COVID-19 and two additional deaths after a winter storm delayed the delivery of vaccines, but not the distribution of vaccines at Maine clinics.

Maine’s cumulative COVID-19 cases rose to 43,367 on Saturday. Of these, 34,431 were confirmed by tests and 8,936 are considered probable cases of COVID-19.

Six hundred and fifty-eight people have died of COVID-19 since the Maine pandemic began. The Maine CDC released information about the two people who died without correlating their ages, genders and counties of residence; they were a man and woman from Oxford County and Waldo County, one in his sixties and the other in his seventies.

The seven-day average of new daily cases dropped to 138.4, well below the peak of 625.3 in mid-January and significantly below last weekend’s average, which fluctuated around 190. In another sign that conditions are improving, the average seven-day positivity rate – the percentage of COVID-19 tests returned positive – dropped to 1.2 percent, according to a tweet from Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine CDC.

A low rate of positivity is a good sign because it means that most cases are being detected, which gives public health professionals a better chance of using quarantine and isolation strategies to fight the virus. The 1.2 percent is less than half the 2.7 percent positivity rate two weeks ago, far from the peak of around 6 percent in late December and early January.

In the summer and early fall, positivity rates in Maine were routinely less than 1 percent, often close to 0.5 percent.

But unlike last summer, there is now also a vaccination program to help reduce the transmission of the virus.

Widespread winter weather has delayed delivery of about 6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the White House said last week. The delay has spread to all 50 states, however, and Maine officials said on Friday they were prepared.

Anticipating a winter storm, Maine CDC officials arranged for doses of the vaccine to be sent last Monday before snow and freezing rain hit the roads, according to spokesman Robert Long. As a result, only a small number of doses have been postponed, said Long.

On Saturday morning, 196,581 Maine residents received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 90,749 received the second. Out of the Maine population of 1.3 million, 14.62 percent received their first dose, according to Maine CDC statistics.

The Biden government is expected to increase vaccine dose shipments to states in the coming weeks, with some experts projecting a doubling of weekly doses by the end of March. For the week of February 22, Maine is expected to receive 27,740 doses, an increase of 14% over the previous week. In addition, a retail pharmacy program operated by the federal government could double the 4,300 weekly doses and add another retail pharmacy partner next week. Currently, Walmart and Sam’s Club pharmacies in Maine are allowing people over 70 to schedule vaccination appointments.

Northern Light Health announced on Thursday that a mass vaccination site at Expo Portland – also scheduled for the group aged 70 and over – is scheduled to open on March 2 and will operate on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Sagadahoc County leads Maine with the most immunizations per capita, with 17.53% of residents receiving the first dose. Just behind is Cumberland County, with 17.25%, and Aroostook County, with 15.99%.

Somerset County is late, with only 9.5% having received their first dose.

County by county until Saturday, there were 4,684 cases of coronavirus in Androscoggin, 1,254 in Aroostook, 12,197 in Cumberland, 880 in Franklin, 871 in Hancock, 3,537 in Kennebec, 620 in Knox, 563 in Lincoln, 2,152 in Oxford, 3,759 in Penobscot, 244 in Piscataquis, 865 in Sagadahoc, 1,229 in Somerset, 572 in Waldo, 698 in Washington and 9,240 in York.

By age, 15.2 percent of patients were under 20 years old, while 18.1 percent were in their 20s, 14.4 percent in their 30s, 13.1 percent in their 40s, 15, 3 percent in their 50s, 11.7 percent in their 60s, 6.6 percent were in their 70s and 5.6% were 80 or older.

Of the 75 patients with COVID-19 in hospitals in Maine on Saturday, 24 were in intensive care and six were on ventilators. The state had 108 beds of intensive care units available out of a total of 390 and 253 ventilators available from 319. There were also 446 alternative ventilators.

Worldwide, on Saturday night, there were 110.9 million known cases of COVID-19 and more than 2.4 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 28 million cases and 497,345 deaths.

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