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Another two Mainers have died as health officials confirmed 28 new coronavirus cases in the state on Friday.
There have now been 1,123 confirmed coronavirus cases across all of Maine’s counties, according to Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah. That’s up from 1,095 on Thursday.
Of those confirmed cases, 253 have been health care workers.
The latest deaths were a man in his 40s from Waldo County and a woman in her 80s from Cumberland County, bringing the statewide death toll to 55, Shah said.
[Our COVID-19 tracker contains the most recent information on Maine cases by county]
So far, 177 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 37 people are currently hospitalized, with 17 in critical care and nine on ventilators, according to the Maine CDC.
Meanwhile, another 657 people have fully recovered from the coronavirus, meaning there are 411 active cases in the state. That’s unchanged since Thursday.
Eight of the new cases are affiliated with previously reported outbreaks, including six new cases at Falmouth by the Sea, bringing the number of confirmed cases there to 42. The Tyson Foods plant in Portland is now reporting 11 confirmed cases.
A majority of the cases have been in Mainers over age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
Another 19,546 people have tested negative for the coronavirus, according to the Maine CDC.
Friday’s report comes as restrictions put in place to halt the spread of the coronavirus began to gradually ease under a four-phase plan that Democratic Gov. Janet Mills outlined earlier this week. Under the first phase, salons, barbershops, car dealerships and golf courses, among other businesses, began to reopen Friday with appropriate safety precautions. A ban remains in place on gatherings of more than 10 people.
So far, the coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 504 cases have been confirmed and where the bulk of deaths from the virus — 27 — have been concentrated. It is one of four counties — the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 52, 79 and 208 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.
Other cases have been detected in Aroostook (5), Franklin (28), Hancock (10), Kennebec (104), Knox (16), Lincoln (14), Oxford (15), Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (19), Somerset (17), Waldo (49) and Washington (2) counties.
As of Friday afternoon, the coronavirus has sickened 1,082,411 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 63,457 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Watch: Nirav Shah talks about the outbreak at Bangor’s Hope House
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