State health officials reported 300 new cases of COVID-19 but nine additional deaths on Wednesday.
The 300 new infections is a marked decrease from both the seven-day average and the record numbers of cases that the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention logged over several days last week. Maine averaged 515 new cases daily for the week ending on Wednesday compared to 559 for the same period one week ago.
Maine’s positivity rate, which reflects the percentage of tests coming back positive for coronavirus, also has been declining in recent days. The seven-day positivity rate now stands at 4.3 percent, well below the more than 6 percent rate from a couple weeks ago.
Hospitalizations from COVID-19 has been declining precipitously as well, and state health officials hope these are signs that the latest surge is easing.
The number of people hospitalized on Wednesday dropped to 166, the lowest it’s been in more than one month. Of those, 51 individuals are in critical care, which is the lowest total since Aug. 22, according to the CDC. Total hospitalizations have decreased by 42 percent since peaking at 235 on Sept. 25, just 11 days ago, and the number in critical care has decreased by 65 percent during that time.
Maine CDC’s lab is also making progress in reducing a backlog of positive cases requiring review to distinguish new infections from repeat positive tests for known cases. The backlog stood at 600 cases on Tuesday, down from roughly 2,500 cases requiring review one week earlier.
The nine additional deaths raised Maine’s total number of COVID-related deaths to 1,045 for the pandemic, although the timeframe for the deaths was not immediately clear. To date, the Maine CDC has tracked 92,665 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 since March 2020.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, is expected to hold a briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the state at 2 p.m.
On the vaccination front, 74.4 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 as of Wednesday. That figure drops to 65.5 percent when including children under age 12 who are not yet eligible for vaccination.
Maine continues to have among the highest full vaccination rates in the country, led only by Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
This story will be updated.
Related Stories
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you’ve submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.