Hospitalizations decrease but remain at or above 400 for the 7th consecutive day

The number of COVID-19 patients in Maine fell slightly on Tuesday, but remained at or above 400 for the 7th day in a row.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported exactly 400 hospitalizations on Tuesday. Of these, 105 are in intensive care and 50 are on ventilators. A total of 3,700 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 at some point during the pandemic.

The outbreak of the new transmission, driven by the omicron variant, has led to increased hospitalizations here and across the country, but there are signs that the variant is causing less severe symptoms for some. Although the overall number of COVID-19 patients has been steadily increasing in Maine for several weeks, the number of people requiring intensive care or ventilators has actually leveled off or even decreased.

Hospitalizations have also increased across the country, reaching their highest level yet – 133,187 patients on average over the past week, according to the US CDC.

Maine health officials also reported 538 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, though that appears to be a partial tally due to the result of a pause in processing positive tests over the holiday weekend and… a large backlog of older cases that the state is still working to confirm. Most of the new cases in Tuesday’s update were submitted to the state for review on Jan. 4 — two weeks ago — and virtually none of the positive tests in the past 10 days have yet been processed by state, according to the Maine CDC website. .

No additional deaths were reported, leaving the pandemic total at 1,658. Maine’s death rate during the pandemic is the third lowest per capita; only Hawaii and Vermont are lower.

Despite Tuesday’s relatively low number of new cases in Maine, the highly transmissible variant of omicron has caused cases to skyrocket here and across the country. The seven-day average is 798,335, about twice as many cases per day as two weeks ago, according to the US CDC.

Even though Maine’s transmission rate is higher than it has ever been, the state ranks lowest of any state with 558 cases per 100,000 population over the past seven days. The national rate is 1,683 cases per 100,000 population.

However, it may also be caused by the state’s inability to keep pace with positive tests. State officials have said daily case updates are no longer a reliable way to track the pandemic, both because of the backlog and because people are doing home tests that don’t. part of the count.

The spread of the omicron variant has put even greater pressure on hospitals, although many will receive assistance this week from members of the Maine National Guard. The two hospitals that will receive the most guard members are Maine Medical Center in Portland, with 30, and Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, with 19.

There are signs that the omicron wave has peaked in some areas, although it could still be several weeks before Maine sees any signs of it. Some schools temporarily switched to remote learning because too many staff were sick.

Vaccinations, meanwhile, remained stable. Overall, Maine administered 970,739 final doses, which means 72.2% of residents are fully immunized, and 530,942 boosters, which represents 39.5% of the population.

As has been the case for many months, parts of the state have much lower vaccination rates. Somerset County is the only county that has not yet reached 60%, and Franklin and Piscataquis are only slightly above 60%.

This story will be updated

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