PORTLAND, Maine (WGAN) Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported an additional 572 cases of coronavirus and 6 deaths on Thursday.
The state continues to see a high level of virus transmission, despite new case numbers falling in many other states. The 7-day average of new daily cases on Thursday stood at 462, up slightly from 453 one week ago.
One week ago, 197 people were in Maine’s hospitals with the virus. That number rose to 206 in Thursday’s update.
It’s not yet clear why the state continues to see such a sustained level of transmission, but Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah speculated this week that the delta variant may only now be appearing in more rural areas of the state that have so far been spared its impact.
According to the AP, the U.S. has been seeing about 73,000 new cases per day on average. That’s down from 173,000 on September 13th, which was during the surge of the delta variant. The U.S. CDC said cases nationwide were down by about 42 percent over the past month.
