| Today is Thursday. There have now been 907 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in all of Maine’s counties, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The statewide death toll has risen to 39, with the deaths of a woman in her 80s from Cumberland County and a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s from Waldo County, according to the Maince CDC. So far, 144 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while another 455 people have fully recovered from it, meaning there are 413 active cases in the state. A majority of the cases have been in Mainers over age 50, while they are almost evenly split between women and men, according to the Maine CDC. Another 16,784 people have tested negative for the coronavirus, according to the Maine CDC. Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and its impact in Maine. — The Maine CDC will provide an update on the coronavirus later today. The BDN will livestream the briefing. — St. Joseph Healthcare has furloughed about 100 of its 1,200 employees — or 8 percent of its workforce — after suffering steep financial losses related to preparations for the coronavirus. In addition, about 30 employees with administrative roles at the Bangor-based health care system have voluntarily taken pay cuts of up to 20 percent. That comes as St. Mary’s Health System announced this week it would furlough 5 percent of its workforce and follows moves by other health care systems to trim costs during the downturn caused by the coronavirus. — About 40 percent of Maine residents have stayed home completely on any given day over the past few weeks, according to new cellphone data that offer a glimpse into how much residents are socially distancing in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The new cellphone data show that Maine residents were already staying at home more before Gov. Janet Mills formally issued a stay-at-home order at the end of March, and compliance with social distancing measures has remained high through the first few weeks of April. — While many workers have either been laid off or forced to do their jobs from home, those haven’t been options for Tiffany Lister, one of a couple dozen drivers for the Community Connector bus system. Like the workers in a few other key industries, Lister and her fellow drivers must still brave the pandemic to offer a vital service: transportation for the remaining people across Greater Bangor who still rely on the bus to reach the grocery store, doctor’s appointments or workplaces that haven’t closed. — So far, eight homicide trials in Maine have been postponed since March 14 when the pandemic began spreading more aggressively in the state. Only one of those cases has been rescheduled so far. The U.S. Constitution guarantees defendants the right to a speedy trial, but Maine law doesn’t define the length of time a trial may be delayed before a defendant’s right is violated. — A widely-used model that projects the path of the coronavirus outbreak in each state estimates that Maine is among nine states that could start relaxing social distancing rules by May 13. Another 12 states won’t be in that position until June 8 or later. But that prediction includes a number of conditions that have yet to be met. — With May 1 on the horizon, golfers across Maine are waiting to see if Gov. Janet Mills will lift the tag of “non-essential” businesses placed on courses so players can tee it up. Some courses opened briefly in March with extra precautions in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, but on March 31 Mills ordered them and other entities to remain closed through April. — The Lewiston armory will shelter people who seek a safe place to stay as city officials work to limit the spread of the coronavirus there. The shelter can house up to 60 adults, who will have access to showers and a place to do laundry, as well as hygiene kits and used clothes. — The Brunswick Town Council on Tuesday voted unanimously that workers at grocery stores, banks, convenience stores and any indoor, public-serving locations. — The Paycheck Protection Program promises a business owner loan forgiveness if they retain or rehire all the workers they had in late February. But owners say the equation isn’t so simple, in part because of current economic conditions and partly due to the terms of the loans. Many of the small companies that were able to obtain a loan are having second thoughts about rehiring all their workers and a few plan to return the money. — As of early Thursday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 842,624 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 46,785 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. — Elsewhere in New England, there have been 2,182 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 1,544 in Connecticut, 181 in Rhode Island, 48 in New Hampshire and 40 in Vermont.
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