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Another 42 coronavirus cases have been detected in Maine, health officials said Thursday.
There have now been 2,878 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 2,836 on Wednesday.
Of those, 2,555 have been confirmed positive, while 323 are likely positive, according to the Maine CDC.
No new deaths were reported Thursday, leaving the statewide death toll at 102.
So far, 323 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 27 people are currently hospitalized, with 10 in critical care and four on ventilators.
Meanwhile, 2,300 people have fully recovered from the virus, meaning there are 476 active and likely cases in the state, according to the Maine CDC. That’s up from 459 on Wednesday.
Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and Maine.
—“Four out of five workers who have filed unemployment claims over the past three months have received benefits, but a shortage of qualified staff is the major reason for the bottleneck in the embattled system, the top state labor official told lawmakers Thursday.” — Jessica Piper, BDN
—“The NCAA Division I Council on Wednesday approved a plan to allow college basketball players to start working with their coaches for the first time since the pandemic wiped out March Madness. The summer access period for men’s and women’s players will begin July 20.” — The Associated Press
—“While Maine has seen nursing home residents become infected with and die from the coronavirus at one of the lowest rates in the country, it has lagged most states in performing the in-person inspections of those homes that the federal government has ordered as part of its response to the pandemic. Those in-person inspections can be an important step in identifying whether facilities are taking appropriate precautions and have enough resources to protect their staff and residents from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus that has caused deadly outbreaks in nursing homes across Maine and the rest of the country.” — Charles Eichacker, BDN
—“For more than a week, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have been encouraging travel around northern New England as a step toward reviving their tourism-dependent economies that have been suppressed by the pandemic. But where exactly you hail from can make a big difference in your ability to move about freely.” Fred Bever, Maine Public
—All of the different coronavirus restrictions can be confusing, especially as some business begins to resume but not all. Here are our answers to your questions about Maine’s economic reopening.
— As of Thursday evening, the coronavirus has sickened 2,182,285 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 118,296 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
— Elsewhere in New England, there have been 7,770 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 4,226 in Connecticut, 885 in Rhode Island, 331 in New Hampshire and 56 in Vermont.