COVID-19 hospitalizations spiked on Monday in Maine, increasing by 22 patients in one day as the delta variant surge maintains its hold on the state.
Maine reported 223 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, compared to 201 on Sunday. Hospitalizations peaked at 235 patients on Sept. 25, declined to 152 on Oct. 7, but have increased yet again during the past two weeks.
A total of 81 patients are in critical care units, also close to the highest level of the pandemic, the state reported Monday. Of those critically ill patients, 30 are breathing with the assistance of ventilators.
The overwhelming majority of those hospitalized have been unvaccinated or are fully vaccinated but older and with other serious health conditions, according to health officials.
With so many patients hospitalized for COVID-19, it has crowded out services for other patients, as some hospital systems have delayed elective surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements.
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are among a small number of states to experience rising hospitalization numbers right now. Across the U.S., meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to decline steadily. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 49,033 people hospitalized on average for the week of Oct. 15-21. That was down 11 percent from the previous week and nearly 50 percent from early September at the height of the delta variant surge.
The Maine CDC does not process COVID-19 tests on weekends anymore, so the number of new cases on Monday was not available, but virus transmission continues to be high in Maine. The state health agency is expected to post updated case counts on Tuesday.
The state reported 585 new cases on Saturday, along with seven additional deaths. The seven-day daily case average is now 463, which is down slightly from 497 cases on average two weeks ago but virtually unchanged from the 466 cases per day Maine was seeing this time last month.
As cases and hospitalizations remain high in Maine, conditions are improving through much of the country. The national seven-day case average has declined more than 40 percent, from roughly 120,000 per day a month ago to 70,000 cases currently.
On the vaccination front, 906,258 Maine people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing 67.4 percent of the state’s 1.3 million population.
Federal regulators are on the verge of approving COVID-19 vaccines for ages 5-11, with a Food and Drug Administration advisory board set to meet on Tuesday to potentially recommend the Pfizer vaccine, followed by a similar U.S. CDC advisory committee next week. If the U.S. CDC advisory committee gives the green light, federal regulators could approve the vaccine for use quickly.
That means the vaccine rollout for elementary-aged children could begin as soon as next week, setting the stage for a significant increase in the total percentage of the state immunized, perhaps 5-7 percent more getting vaccinated, as about 100,000 schoolchildren become eligible.
The higher the overall vaccination rate, there’s a stronger likelihood that reductions in COVID-19 transmission will be long-lasting, public health experts have said. Also, school children, because of the large numbers of children and adults they interact with at school, can be vectors of the disease.
Maine is expected to offer the vaccine to newly-eligible schoolchildren at school-based clinics, pediatrician’s offices, and drug stores, among other places.
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