The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 716 new cases of COVID-19 and two additional deaths on Thursday.
The surge that began at the height of summer is now now pushing into fall, with the state setting new records for hospitalized patients on a near-daily basis as the delta variant continues to spread, particularly among the unvaccinated.
Every county in Maine now has “high” rates of community transmission based on federal criteria and Penobscot County has emerged as the latest hotspot, with 148 new cases reported on Thursday. Highlighting the ongoing spread of the virus in rural Maine, Piscataquis County has the highest case rate for the past week followed by Penobscot and Somerset counties. Piscataquis and Somerset counties also have the lowest vaccination rates in the state, with less than 55 percent of residents fully inoculated against COVID.
Even so, state officials are seeing “small signs of optimism” that this latest surge — which rivals the worst of the 18-month-long pandemic — could be easing in Maine as it has in other states.
“We are starting to see a slight but perceptible decrease in positivity every day,” Maine CDC director Dr. Nirav Shah said Wednesday, referring to the rate of COVID-19 tests that come back as positive.
Thursday’s 716 new cases is up from the 614 cases reported on Wednesday and increases the seven-day daily case average to 467. That compares to an average of 456 new cases daily for the week ending on September 16 and is more than 20 times higher than the 20 new cases per day being reported before this latest surge in early July.
The two additional deaths reported on Thursday increased Maine’s total COVID-related deaths to 1009. To date, the Maine CDC has tracked 85,872 confirmed or probable cases of the viral disease since the coronavirus was first detected in the state in March 2020.
Hospitalization figures were not yet available Thursday morning, but the state has been on a record-setting pace for the past several weeks.
Wednesday’s totals of 226 hospitalizations statewide and 88 patients in critical care were both the highest of the pandemic. There were also 40 people connected to ventilators to assist with breathing.
Maine’s virus prevalence is now much closer to the national average, at 36 cases per 100,000 residents on an average day, compared to 40 nationally, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute. Maine has the second highest infection rate in the northeast behind Pennsylvania, which is reporting a daily average of 37 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days.
On the vaccination front, 73.1 percent of all eligible Mainers had received either both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the single-shot vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson. That figure drops to 64.4 percent when including children under age 12 who are not yet eligible for vaccination.
The pace of vaccinations has increased from about 2,000 people a day two weeks ago to 2,400 shots administrated daily this week, Shah said on Wednesday.
Maine continues to have one of the highest vaccination rates in the nation as well as among the lowest COVID-19 case and death rates.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized third shots, or “booster shots,” of the Pfizer vaccine for people age 65 or older as well as individuals with high-risk jobs or who have underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk of serious illness or death. People with higher risk of exposure include health care workers, teachers, grocery store workers and people living in homeless shelters or prisons, according to the FDA.
Federal regulators had previously authorized third shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for people with weakened immune systems, including cancer patients and organ transplant recipients.
But health experts are far from united on the need for and efficacy of booster shots across the broader population. The federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is expected to discuss the issue for a second day on Thursday before making more specific recommendations to the U.S. CDC on booster shots.
In a Twitter message, Shah said Wednesday that there was “more to come on what this means for you here in Maine.”
This story will be updated.
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