AUGUSTA, Maine — A record 214 Mainers were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, up more than double compared to a month ago as the virus continues to surge here.
Seventy-three patients were in critical care beds as of Monday, down slightly from a record of 79 set on Sunday, while 33 people were on ventilators, according to data from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 58 critical care beds available across the state.
The hospitalizations Monday exceed totals at any point previously in the pandemic, including this past winter, when the virus surged after the holidays and vaccinations were not yet available to most Mainers.
Maine has largely stuck to its COVID-19 strategy in recent months even as the virus has continued to spread quickly here, with no new restrictions on the horizon given the wide availability of vaccines. The virus continues to affect the state’s unvaccinated population the most, with unvaccinated people about eight times as likely as vaccinated people to test positive in August and early September, according to state data.
The record here follows similar trends in other states over the past few months as the highly contagious delta variant has spread rapidly across the U.S. States with lower vaccination rates, such as Kentucky and Tennessee, have seen their greatest number of patients hospitalized in the past month, as have others, such as Oregon and Washington, that — like Maine — have relatively high vaccination rates.