Another 47 coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Wednesday.
Wednesday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 5,816. Of those, 5,191 have been confirmed positive, while 625 were classified as “probable cases,” according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency revised Tuesday’s cumulative total to 5,769, down from 5,780, meaning there was an increase of 47 over the previous day’s report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the state’s cumulative total.
New cases were reported in Somerset (8), Knox (1), Lincoln (1), Kennebec (9), Androscoggin (6), Oxford (3), Cumberland (5), Waldo (5) and York (9), state data show.
The seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 34.4, up from 31.1 a week ago and up from 25.4 a month ago.
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The state continues to see outbreaks of the coronavirus — in which three or more cases in a particular place are connected — largely in counties that have seen a recent uptick in case numbers. In Kennebec County, for example, four cases have been recorded in the fire department that serves the Togus VA Medical Center in Chelsea, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said Tuesday. A number of other outbreaks announced recently have also grown, Shah said, including an outbreak at Community Regional Charter School in the Skowhegan area in Somerset County and The Meadows independent living facility in the Androscoggin County town of Greene.
The five new cases in Waldo County are not connected to an outbreak, Robert Long, spokesperson for the CDC, said.
“We’re not aware of anything sort of sneaking up on Waldo County at this point in time,” Long said. “There are more people getting tested and more people moving around … When you test more, you find more. And it’s indicative that it’s here.”
Long said that Waldo is among the counties in Maine that have had low incidences of the disease so far and have not had community transmission detected.
The Maine CDC is also keeping an eye out for cases potentially connected to a hockey referee who tested positive after refereeing eight games in southern Maine and New Hampshire on Oct. 3 and 4, potentially exposing 400 people to the virus. The CDC hasn’t learned of any connected cases yet, Shah said, but “we’re entering the time period at which those might happen.”
No new deaths were reported Wednesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 143. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
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Eight people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, with three of those people in critical care. So far, 463 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, 46 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 5,052. That means there are 621 active confirmed and “probable” cases in the state, which is down from 631 on Tuesday.
A majority of the cases — 3,392 — have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Wednesday, there have been 523,117 negative test results out of 530,287 overall. About 1.3 percent of all tests have come back positive, the most recently available Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,396 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths — 70 — have been concentrated. It is one of four counties — the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 823, 270 and 1,292 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 reported in Aroostook (53), Franklin (71), Hancock (56), Kennebec (274), Knox (53), Lincoln (51), Oxford (161), Piscataquis (10), Sagadahoc (73), Somerset (128), Waldo (85) and Washington (20) counties.
As of Wednesday ev, the coronavirus had sickened 7,899,313 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 216,513 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Correction: A previous version of this story had an incorrect casecount for Somerset County and new cases in some counties.
BDN writer Abigail Curtis contributed to this report.