Maine saw another record high number of new coronavirus cases on Friday as the state CDC tries to keep up with a flood of positive tests.
The agency said Friday there were another 2,148 cases of coronavirus and eight additional deaths. Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long says six of those deaths were confirmed through vital records reviews and date back to November and early December.
On social media, Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah said the unusually high case number is a result of his agency trying to work through a backlog of positive tests.
2/Of the 2148 new cases today, roughly 1700 are the result of that all-out effort to reduce the volume of tests waiting review.
Those individuals were already contacted when their positive lab report came in to us over the past several days. We are reporting them as cases now.
— Nirav D. Shah (@nirav_uscdc) December 10, 2021
Shah said a similar jump in the number of virus deaths is expected in the coming days as they continue vital records reviews of deaths that occurred in November.
375 people are in Maine’s hospitals with the virus. 122 of those patients are in critical care and 60 are on ventilators.
This week, the state set another record hospitalization record, reaching 379 on Wednesday. Governor Janet Mills called on members of the Maine National Guard and a federal surge response team to help alleviate the strain on hospitals in the state, which say they’re seeing an influx of unvaccinated patients with the virus.
