Another Mainer has died and 29 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Saturday.
Saturday’s report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,144. Of those, 3,726 have been confirmed positive, while 418 were classified as “probable cases,” according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency revised Friday’s cumulative total to 4,116, up from 4,115, meaning there was an increase of 28 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.
One new death was reported Saturday, leaving the statewide death toll at 127. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60. The additional death reported today is a man in his 90s from Androscoggin County.
So far, 401 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, 12 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,616. That means there are 401 active and “probable” cases in the state, which is up from 385 on Friday.
Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and its impact on Maine.
—“More people who want to know if they have the coronavirus even if they don’t have symptoms will now be able to get tested at 10 sites across Maine run by Northern Light Health, the state’s second-largest hospital system, as a result of a state effort to provide medical providers with more resources to surveil for the virus.” — Charles Eichacker, BDN
“Maine plans to adapt its voting system to increase accessibility to visually impaired people as it looks to resolve a lawsuit filed just after the July primary election, the first during the coronavirus pandemic in the state. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court contends the state violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the Maine Human Rights Act because it has not offered a way for visually impaired people to vote safely and privately in the pandemic.” — Caitlin Andrews, BDN
—“Students will find meals served in classrooms, sparse cafeterias where they’ll have to stay 6 feet from other students and bagged meals for them to pick up and take home for the days they won’t be in school buildings. As students prepare to return to school this fall, meals will be one aspect of their day that will look fundamentally different because of the coronavirus.” — Eesha Pendharkar, BDN
—“The New Balance factories in Norridgewock and Skowhegan closed on Friday for the second time since the pandemic began due to employees testing positive for COVID 19, WABI-TV reported.” — Nick Sambides, BDN
As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus has sickened 5,335,398 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 168,903 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.