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Another nine cases of the new coronavirus have been detected in Maine, health officials said Tuesday. It marks the lowest number of new cases the state has seen since April 27.
There have now been 2,819 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 2,810 on Monday.
Of those, 2,499 have been confirmed positive, while 320 are likely positive, according to the Maine CDC.
No new deaths were reported Tuesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 101. In the past week, the state has recorded only one new death, bringing them to a low not seen since the earliest days of the pandemic.
So far, 321 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while 2,233 people have fully recovered from the virus, meaning there are 485 active and likely cases in the state, according to the Maine CDC. That’s down from 520 on Monday.
A majority of the cases have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Tuesday, there have been 75,231 negative test results out of 79,084 overall. About 4 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 1,450 cases have been confirmed and where the bulk of virus deaths — 57 — have been concentrated. It is one of four counties — the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 428, 101 and 450 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 (10), Franklin (37), Hancock (13), Kennebec (137), Knox (23), Lincoln (21), Oxford (34), Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (30), Somerset (25) Waldo (55) and Washington (1) counties. Information about where another three cases were detected wasn’t immediately available Tuesday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the coronavirus has sickened 2,130,569 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 116,726 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.