Maine sees record-breaking 2,148 new coronavirus cases amid surge
This story will be updated.
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
Maine saw a staggering 2,148 more coronavirus cases and another eight deaths on Friday amid a post-holiday surge in infections.
That surpasses the previous single-day record, set on Thursday, of 1,460 and more cases than Maine saw during nearly the first three months of the pandemic.
Friday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 128,981, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 126,833 on Thursday.
Of those, 92,313 have been confirmed positive, while 36,668 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
Five women and three men have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,365.
Two were from Androscoggin County, one from Aroostook County, two from Cumberland County, two from Kennebec County and one from Oxford County. Of those, four were 80 or older, one was in their 60s and three in their 50s.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 10,492. 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 8,892 on Thursday.
The new case rate statewide Thursday was 16.05 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 963.69.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 962.4, up from 769.6 the day before, up from 518.1 a week ago and up from 512.3 a month ago.
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, 3,223 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 Friday was 24.08 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (13,950), Aroostook (6,201), Cumberland (25,496), Franklin (3,278), Hancock (3,845), Kennebec (12,650), Knox (2,590), Lincoln (2,347), Oxford (6,785), Penobscot (15,103), Piscataquis (1,752), Sagadahoc (2,621), Somerset (5,689), Waldo (3,076), Washington (2,499) and York (21,095) counties. Information about where an additional four cases were reported wasn’t immediately available.
An additional 6,170 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 935,048 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 73 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Friday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 49,664,506 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 793,648 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.