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Another three Mainers have died from the new coronavirus as health officials confirmed 19 more cases.
There have now been 907 coronavirus cases confirmed in all of Maine’s counties, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 888 on Tuesday.
The statewide death toll now stands at 39. The latest deaths involve 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.
[Our COVID-19 tracker contains the most recent information on Maine cases by county]
So far, 144 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 42 people are currently hospitalized, with 18 in critical care and 10 on ventilators, according to the Maine CDC.
Meanwhile, 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.
Out of the state total, 190 cases are related to congregate care and long-term care facilities. Of these facilities, the Augusta Center for Health and Rehabilitation is reporting 74 cases; Falmouth by the Sea is reporting 15 cases; Maine Veterans’ Homes in Scarborough is reporting 47 cases and five deaths; Tall Pines Community in Belfast is reporting 40 cases and 10 deaths; The Cedars in Portland is reporting 11 cases.
On Wednesday, Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said it’s tracking a new outbreak at Edgewood Rehabilitation & Living Center in Farmington where three cases are reported.
It is also investigating another possible outbreak at the John F. Murphy Homes in Auburn — a group home serving adults with developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders — where one resident and two staff members have tested positive.
So far, the coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 395 cases have been confirmed and where the bulk of deaths from the virus — 18 — have been concentrated. It is one of four counties — Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 36, 47 and 185 cases, respectively — where “community transmission” has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.
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. That second condition has not yet been “satisfied” in other counties.
On Wednesday, Shah said that community transmission has not been confirmed in other counties.
Other cases have been detected in Aroostook (2), Franklin (14), Hancock (7), Kennebec (99), Knox (13), Lincoln (12), Oxford (14), Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (17), Somerset (16), Waldo (45) and Washington (2) counties. Information about where another two cases were detected was not immediately available Wednesday morning.
Shah said on Wednesday that over 600,000 pieces of PPE have been distributed to 1,120 institutions. As of Wednesday morning, there were 179,750 N95 masks in the state’s inventory with 14,020 being shipped out on Thursday.
As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, the coronavirus has sickened 846,982 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 46,609 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Watch: What is an N95 face mask?
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