13 more Mainers die as another 535 coronavirus cases are reported across the state – Bangor Daily News

Another 13 Mainers have died as health officials on Thursday reported 535 more coronavirus cases across the state.

Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 27,625, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 27,090 on Wednesday.

Of those, 23,193 have been confirmed positive, while 4,432 were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

A man in his 40s and a man in hi 80s from Aroostook County; a woman in her 80s from Cumberland County; a man in his 60s and two women in their 90s from Hancock County; a woman in her 70s from Kennebec County; a man in his 60s and a woman in her 80s from Oxford County; and a man in his 70s, two men in their 80s and a woman in her 90s from York County have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 385, according to Maine CDC spokesperson Robert Long. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 490.3, down from 513 a day ago but up from 426 a week ago and up from 289.9 a month ago.

Thursdays report marked the seventh time in the past 10 days when new cases exceeded 400 and the third time this week when they crested 500. It comes as elevated virus transmission continues its monthslong surge, bringing high levels of community transmission, which the Maine CDC defines as a case rate of 16 or more cases per 10,000 people, even to counties once largely spared the worst of the pandemic.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel.

So far, 1,135 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 202 people are currently hospitalized, with 55 in critical care and 25 on ventilators.

Long said that 42,317 Mainers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

A majority of the cases 16,472 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Thursday, there have been 1,237,205 negative test results out of 1,271,403 overall. More than 2.6 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 8,140 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 108 have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (3,011), Aroostook (804), Franklin (503), Hancock (608), Kennebec (2,036), Knox (399), Lincoln (334), Oxford (1,257), Penobscot (2,423), Piscataquis (136), Sagadahoc (461), Somerset (815), Waldo (392), Washington (416) and York (5,888) counties. Information about where an additional two cases were reported wasnt immediately available.

As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 21,354,027 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 362,037 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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13 more Mainers die as another 535 coronavirus cases are reported across the state - Bangor Daily News