26 new cases of coronavirus reported in Maine – Bangor Daily News

Another 26 coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Tuesday.

Mondays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 5,780. Of those, 5,160 have been confirmed positive, while 620 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Mondays cumulative total to 5,754, up from 5,752, meaning there was an increase of 26 over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

New cases were reported in Cumberland (5), Androscoggin (3), Franklin (2), Oxford (1), Somerset (5), York (6), Kennebec (4), Penobscot (2) and Sagadahoc (2) counties, state data show.

The seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 34.3, up from 33.4 a week ago and up from 22.6 a month ago.

The state continues to see outbreaks of the coronavirus in which three or more cases in a particular place are connected largely in counties that have seen a recent uptick in case numbers. In Kennebec County, for example, four cases have been recorded in the fire department that serves the Togus VA Medical Center in Chelsea, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said Tuesday. A number of other outbreaks announced recently have also grown, Shah said, including an outbreak at Community Regional Charter School in the Skowhegan area in Somerset County and The Meadows independent living facility in the Androscoggin County town of Greene.

The Maine CDC is also keeping an eye out for cases potentially connected to a hockey referee who tested positive after refereeing eight games in southern Maine and New Hampshire on Oct. 3 and 4, potentially exposing 400 people to the virus. The CDC hasnt learned of any connected cases yet, Shah said, but were entering the time period at which those might happen.

We hope that there are no cases, but we dont know, he said.

No new deaths were reported Tuesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 143. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 463 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, eight more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 5,006. That means there are 631 active confirmed and probable cases in the state, which is up from 611 on Monday.

A majority of the cases 3,357 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Friday, there had been 493,158 negative test results out of 501,020 overall. About 1.5 percent of all tests have come back positive, the most recently available Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,392 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 70 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 817, 271 and 1,284 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

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. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (53), Franklin (72), Hancock (56), Kennebec (268), Knox (52), Lincoln (50), Oxford (158), Piscataquis (10), Sagadahoc (74), Somerset (123), Waldo (80) and Washington (20) counties.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 7,829,476 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 215,476 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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26 new cases of coronavirus reported in Maine - Bangor Daily News