Maine sets grim record with 1,460 more coronavirus cases
This story will be updated.
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
For the second straight day, Maine saw coronavirus cases surge to a record high, with 1,460 new infections across the state along with one more death.
That surpasses Wednesday’s single-day record of 1,275.
Thursday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 126,833, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 125,373 on Wednesday.
Of those, 90,682 have been confirmed positive, while 36,151 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
A man in his 40s from Kennebec County has succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,357.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 8,892. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. That’s up from 8,425 on Wednesday.
The new case rate statewide Wednesday was 10.91 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 947.64.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 769.6, up from 683.3 the day before, up from 404.1 a week ago and up from 512.3 a month ago. That average has surged past the previous peak of 685.4, set on Nov. 23.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.
So far, 3,198 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Information about those who are currently hospitalized wasn’t immediately available.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 23.89 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (13,753), Aroostook (5,925), Cumberland (25,259), Franklin (3,181), Hancock (3,771), Kennebec (12,475), Knox (2,521), Lincoln (2,300), Oxford (6,703), Penobscot (14,739), Piscataquis (1,702), Sagadahoc (2,579), Somerset (5,606), Waldo (3,005), Washington (2,458) and York (20,837) counties. Information about where an additional 19 cases were reported wasn’t immediately available.
An additional 5,829 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 932,417 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 72.8 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 49,538,960 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 793,228 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.