April 23 evening update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine

April 23 evening update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine

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There have now been 937 coronavirus cases confirmed in all of Maine’s counties, according to Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah. That’s up from 907 on Wednesday.

Five more Mainers have died from the novel coronavirus in the single deadliest day of the outbreak in the state. The latest deaths were all men from Cumberland County: one in his 50s, two in their 70s and two in their 90s. All were veterans and residents at the Maine Veterans’ Homes in Scarborough.

The statewide death toll now stands at 44.

[Our COVID-19 tracker contains the most recent information on Maine cases by county]

So far, 150 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while another 485 people have fully recovered from it, meaning there are 408 active cases in the state.

Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and Maine.

— Five more residents of the Maine Veterans’ Homes facility in Scarborough have died from the coronavirus, accounting for all new deaths the state reported from COVID-19 on Thursday. The five deaths at the long-term care facility outside of Portland brings the total number of deaths there up to 10. In total, 44 Maine residents have died of the coronavirus, and more than half — 23 — have been long-term care facility residents.

— Maine will take a gradual approach to lifting restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, but things “will not return to normal soon,” Gov. Janet Mills said Thursday. The Democratic governor released a four-point list of principles that will guide the state in a restart.

—Remote meetings have become the norm for state lawmakers during the pandemic, but there are some questions about whether those meetings comply with state law. Gov. Janet Mills said Thursday that remote briefings administration officials held for lawmakers on the coronavirus didn’t violate the state’s open meetings law — even though most were open to the entire Legislature, no public notice was given and the public had no way of participating.

—Thus far, Maine health officials have not released town-by-town data about people who have tested positive for COVID-19, and it appears that that policy will continue. It could take up to six months for the state to release data showing how many coronavirus cases have been reported in each of the state’s more than 400 cities and towns, according to Maine’s public health agency.

—Maine’s interstate traffic has been significantly lower since coronavirus hit the state. The Maine Turnpike Authority expects that coronavirus restrictions will continue to compel a vast drop in traffic over the next three months, and while things should improve after that, it is likely to finish the year with revenues cut by as much as $20 million. With $132 million in cash on hand, however, the authority’s expected losses will not have a great impact.

— Staff members at an Augusta nursing home who initially tested negative for the coronavirus when the facility reported what has become Maine’s largest coronavirus outbreak have now tested positive for COVID-19. The staff members had been caring for the minority of Augusta Center for Health and Rehabilitation residents who had also tested negative for the virus, which has infected about three-quarters of the facility’s 63 residents.

— Many Maine communities have pared back or dropped recycling programs in an effort to guard workers from potential exposure to the new coronavirus. Some big supermarkets have also curtailed in-store redemption. To accommodate these moves, Gov. Janet Mills has ordered that the state ease enforcement of some recycling rules.

— Maine workers are outpacing those in any other state in making more on unemployment than they would have in their jobs after a federal stimulus program beefed up benefits due to the coronavirus, according to the New York Times.

—New jobless claims in Maine declined again last week, but still remain well above where they were before economic activity was sharply curtailed to halt the spread of the new coronavirus. Mainers submitted 11,561 new jobless claims to the state for the week of April 12 to 18, according to new data the Maine Department of Labor released Thursday morning.

—Wanting to help the Old Town community through the pandemic, local firefighters started dropping off free lunches to older people who reside in the city’s housing authority buildings — some of whom live alone and have little access to transportation or the ability to make their own meals.

— The U.S. Treasury Department said it’s unsure if it will be able to disburse $8 billion in coronavirus relief funding to Native American tribes by a Sunday deadline. The department hasn’t determined whether unique Alaska Native corporations are eligible for a share of the money, Justice Department attorney Jason Lynch told a federal judge Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of tribes suing the federal government to try and keep the funding out of the hands of the corporations was growing; one of those tribes is the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians in Maine.

— As of early Thursday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 856,209 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 47,272 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

— Elsewhere in New England, there have been 2,360 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 1,639 in Connecticut, 189 in Rhode Island, 48 in New Hampshire and 43 in Vermont.

Watch: Maine CDC, Gov. Janet Mills press conference, April 23