Another 16 Mainers died as health officials on Friday reported 823 more coronavirus cases across the state.
Friday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 32,781, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 31,958 on Thursday.
Of those, 26,923 have been confirmed positive, while 5,858 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported.
The 16 deaths reported on Friday bring the statewide toll to 477. The deaths reported today include two residents of Androscoggin County, five residents of Aroostook County, two residents of Cumberland County, two residents of Hancock County, one resident of Oxford County, two residents of Penobscot County and two residents of Washington County. Thirteen of the people who died were women, while three were men. One was in their 40s, one was in their 50s, two were in their 60s, two were in their 70s and 10 were 80 or older.
Maine’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 627.1, up from 622.4 a day ago, up from 539.9 a week ago and up from 403.7 a month ago. Before this surge began in late October, Maine’s seven-day average was hovering in the 30s.
The Maine CDC continues to report widespread high levels of community transmission, defined as a case rate of 16 or more per 10,000 people, even in 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, 1,228 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. As of Friday, 193 patients are currently hospitalized with 61 in critical care and 24 on a ventilator.
Vaccinations have been administered to 70,228 Mainers so far, with 10,617 having received two doses.
There have been 1,328,905 negative test results out of 1,368,816 overall. About 2.85 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 9,650 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths — 119 — have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (3,553), Aroostook (996), Franklin (552), Hancock (671), Kennebec (2,472), Knox (466), Lincoln (385), Oxford (1,523), Penobscot (2,787), Piscataquis (155), Sagadahoc (589), Somerset (930), Waldo (423), Washington (484) and York (7,125) counties. Information about where an additional 20 cases were reported wasn’t immediately available.
As of Friday evening, the coronavirus had sickened 23,520,561 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 391,922 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.