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Another Mainer has died as health officials reported 45 more cases of the new coronavirus have been detected in the state.
There have now been 1,648 cases across all of Maine’s counties since March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 1,603 on Friday.
Of those, 1,477 have been confirmed positive, while 171 are likely positive, according to the Maine CDC.
The latest death is a man in his 90s from Cumberland County. The state death toll now stands at 70.
[Our COVID-19 tracker contains the most recent information on Maine cases by county]
So far, 214 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while 1,012 people have fully recovered from the coronavirus, leaving 566 active and likely cases in the state. That’s up from 541 on Friday.
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.
Additionally, 33,035 Mainers have tested negative for the coronavirus.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 821 cases have been confirmed and where the bulk of virus deaths — 35 — have been concentrated. It is one of four counties — the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 120, 93 and 288 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 (7), Franklin (33), Hancock (10), Kennebec (120), Knox (21), Lincoln (17), Oxford (17), Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (26), Somerset (20) Waldo (50) and Washington (2) counties. Information about where another two cases were detected wasn’t immediately available Wednesday.
As of Thursday afternoon, the coronavirus has sickened 1,446,875 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 87,697 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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