PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s rural areas need better access to COVID-19 testing, the head of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The percent positivity rate in some of Maine’s rural counties is much higher than it is in more densely populated areas such as Cumberland County. Federal data show the percent positivity rate in Cumberland is about 2% while in rural Somerset County it’s more than 9%.
Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Nirav Shah said Thursday that’s a product of lack of testing. He said the state is working to get more tests to rural corners of the state. Maine has the lowest population density in New England.
“Not enough testing happening in those parts of the state. We’re focusing on making community level testing more accessible,” Shah said.
Federal authorities have said the entire state is the site of high transmission of the virus.
In other pandemic news in Maine:
THE NUMBERS
Cases of the virus have continued to rise in the state.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Maine has risen over the past two weeks from 450.29 new cases a day on Sept. 14 to 558.29 new cases a day on Tuesday.
The AP is using data collected by Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering to measure outbreak caseloads and deaths across the United States.
Maine CDC reported the state has been the site of about 90,000 positive cases of coronavirus and more than 1,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Maine continues to have one of the highest rates of COVID-19 vaccination in the country.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.
