Another two Mainers have died as health officials on Wednesday confirmed 28 more coronavirus cases have been detected in Maine.
There have now been 2,137 cases across all of Maine’s counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 2,109 on Tuesday.
Of those cases, 1,914 have been confirmed positive, while 223 are likely positive, according to the Maine CDC.
The latest deaths involved two Cumberland County residents, bringing the statewide death toll to 81.
So far, 260 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 59 people are currently hospitalized, with 25 in critical care and 14 on ventilators.
Meanwhile, 1,357 people have fully recovered from the virus, meaning there are 699 active and likely cases in the state, according to the Maine CDC. That’s down from 712 on Tuesday.
Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and Maine.
—Gov. Janet Mills delayed reopenings of indoor dining in three of Maine’s most populous counties on Wednesday, but another official softened the news with details of how those restaurants can expand outdoor seating by using tents or spaces only accessible through the restaurant.
—As Maine continues to expand testing for the coronavirus, the share of positive tests continues to drop, a good sign for the state’s overall trajectory despite increases in the rate of new cases and hospitalizations over the past few weeks. The increase in cases and hospitalizations comes as Maine continues resuming business activities.
—Now that the national death toll from COVID-19 has reached the 100,000 mark, including 81 dead in Maine as of Wednesday afternoon, many are reflecting on those somber numbers. Each Wednesday at 12:19 p.m. for the foreseeable future, All Souls Congregational Church and other Bangor churches will ring their church bells to honor the dead, the ill, the dislocated and the first responders. The noon hour has no significance, but the 19 symbolizes COVID-19.
— At least four workers at a Lewiston group home have tested positive for the coronavirus, making it the latest of Maine’s congregate living facilities to have a confirmed outbreak of the infection, according to state officials. The new outbreak was discovered at a facility run by Ubuntu Care, a Portland-based company that offers residential care in Androscoggin, Cumberland and York counties, according to its website.
—One of the three airlines that had submitted bids to provide Essential Air Service at Presque Isle International Airport has requested that the Department of Transportation withdraw its bid. Silver told the DOT it decided to withdraw because the “fallout” from the COVID-19 pandemic would have rendered services to and from Presque Isle unprofitable.
—Scammers who targeted Maine’s overwhelmed unemployment system may have filed thousands of fraudulent unemployment insurance claims worth millions of dollars, officials said Wednesday.
—The Maine Brewers’ Guild, issued a news release late Tuesday asking Gov. Janet Mills and other officials to allow breweries to reopen June 1 — in line with restaurants — rather than the current state mandate of July 1 for brewers without restaurant licenses. The guild also asked for the state to use the ability to reopen outdoors seating as a criterion rather than liquor license classifications, which are preventing brewers from using the outdoor seating they could open before the coronavirus pandemic spread. The guild said Vermont, New Hampshire and the city of Boston have prioritized reopening businesses with outdoor seating.
—A company that makes rapid-result tests to detect the new coronavirus plans to add a new production center in Westbrook. Abbott Laboratories is renovating and expanding a building that was used as a sporting goods distribution center. The building will be converted into a manufacturing facility for COVID-19 test kits.
—As of early Wednesday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 1,695,776 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 100,047 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
—Elsewhere in New England, there have been 6,473 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 3,803 in Connecticut, 655 in Rhode Island, 214 in New Hampshire and 54 in Vermont.
Watch: Gov. Janet Mills, Maine CDC press conference, May 27
May 26 evening update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine
Another Mainer has died as health officials on Tuesday confirmed 35 more coronavirus cases have been detected in Maine.
There have now been 2,109 cases across all of Maine’s counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of those, 1,894 have been confirmed positive, while 215 are likely positive, according to the Maine CDC.
Here’s a roundup of the latest news about the coronavirus and its impact in Maine.
— “Downtown Bangor may look dramatically different this summer, as city councilors weigh whether to shut down several streets and allow businesses to offer dining and retail services outdoors.” — Emily Burnham, BDN
— “Bath Iron Works was notified Tuesday that a vendor who worked at the facility for several months has tested positive for the coronavirus, it said, the third person associated with the shipyard to do so.” — Lori Valigra, BDN
— “Blood clots that can cause strokes, heart attacks and dangerous blockages in the legs and lungs are increasingly being found in COVID-19 patients, including some children. Even tiny clots that can damage tissue throughout the body have been seen in hospitalized patients and in autopsies, confounding doctors’ understanding of what was once considered mainly a respiratory infection.” — Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press
— “Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Maine surged over the weekend, with the number of patients hospitalized statewide returning to mid-April levels as the state prepares to continue removing business restrictions in the coming week.” — Jessica Piper, BDN
— “When the new coronavirus officially arrived in Maine in March, it crept inland and up the coastline, closer to Penobscot County. In Bangor, local officials prepared to curb the spread of the virus, following some of the strictest early measures to shut down public places and encourage people to stay home. But when it came to protecting people who are homeless from getting and spreading infection, city officials clashed with Bangor’s largest shelter, the Hope House Health and Living Center, over how to develop a strategy that was both prudent and fast.” — Callie Ferguson, BDN
— “An effort to fill 1,000 production and manufacturing jobs in southern Maine continues amid a time of record unemployment — 10.6 percent in the month of April.” — Willis Ryder Arnold, Maine Public
— “Southern Maine was most affected by a sharp decline in vehicle travel over a Memorial Day weekend stunted by the coronavirus, though travel within the state increased relative to earlier in the outbreak as rural areas saw traffic return to near pre-pandemic levels.” — Jessica Piper, BDN
“Some local businesspeople argue that the area, which is part of Maine’s western mountains and lakes region, is rural and very different from Portland and should be allowed freer operations. Businesspeople in the region circulated a letter to Mills and Maine’s U.S. senators on May 15 urging them to separate it from the Portland region that runs from South Portland through Windham. They asked that Bridgton, Harrison, Naples, Casco, Raymond and Sebago be separated because they have relatively low population densities and lower per-capita income.” — Lori Valigra, BDN
— “Maine is planning to gradually increase its contact tracing staff by up to 175 and the launch of a new reporting system to accompany increased testing for the new coronavirus, the Mills administration announced Tuesday.” — Caitlin Andrews, BDN
— “When Emma Burke was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 29 last Memorial Day weekend, her condition was aggressive. She was put on a steady regimen of medication that has put her in a tentative remission. She still needs regular checkups and MRIs every three months to ensure the medication she takes is working. Her last MRI was supposed to occur in mid-March, but the hospital delayed it to focus efforts on the coronavirus. Burke is now scheduled to see her neurologist in early July — three months behind schedule — and is managing the threat of relapse herself.” — Nick Schroeder, BDN
— “The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has announced that, effective June 1, it’s allowing churches in the state to hold public Masses.” — Ed Morin, Maine Public
— “Shannon Shaw’s third-grade class had never used Google Classroom or any other online teaching tool before the coronavirus pandemic. Then, schools shut down in March and had to shift abruptly to remote instruction. For Shaw’s 15 students at Abraham Lincoln School in Bangor, how they’ve learned remotely has changed as the closure has stretched from an initial two-week period to the remainder of the school year.” — Eesha Pendharkar, BDN
— “The state announced last week private campgrounds could open to Maine residents for Memorial Day weekend. The past few days have brought a different — and much more welcome — hubbub, as some of the nearly 300 privately owned campgrounds around the state welcomed visitors once again.” — Abigail Curtis, BDN
— Watch: “Maine is planning to gradually increase its contact tracing staff by up to 175 and the launch of a new reporting system to accompany increased testing for the new coronavirus.” — Natalie Williams, BDN
— As of Tuesday evening, the coronavirus has sickened 1,676,401 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 98,852 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
— Elsewhere in New England, there have been 6,473 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 3,769 in Connecticut, 634 in Rhode Island, 210 in New Hampshire and 54 in Vermont.
