PORTLAND, Maine (WGAN) Maine on Wednesday saw the largest single-day increase in new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, as hospital officials raise alarm bells over shrinking capacity and the governor calls on the Maine National Guard to help.
In Wednesday’s update, the Maine CDC reported 1,275 cases and eight additional deaths among people with coronavirus.
The state again broke its hospitalization record just set on Tuesday, with 379 patients now in the hospital with the virus. 117 of those patients are in critical care and 60 are on ventilators.
Health officials said they anticipated a rise in cases as a result of gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Governor Janet Mills announced Wednesday her administration is turning to the Maine National Guard to help alleviate strain on the healthcare system as it deals with a surge of hospitalizations.
Mills says deploying the National Guard to nursing facilities through at least January will allow the facilities to take in more patients who are released from hospitals and help to mitigate a bottleneck, freeing up capacity at hospitals.
She also says members will be deployed to locations where they’ll be administering monoclonal antibodies to help prevent serious illness and keep people out of the hospital. Those locations will be determined in the coming days.
“We’ve been involved since the early days of the pandemic and are privileged to be able to continue that support now. We are especially thankful to the families and employers of our National Guardsmen, whose support is so critical,” said Major General Douglas Farnham, Maine’s Adjutant General.
On Wednesday, MaineHealth, the largest health network in the state, said Maine Medical Center in Portland had run out of critical care beds at certain points during the week, forcing them to divert patients away from the emergency department.
The hospital network said that a surge of coronavirus hospitalizations among the unvaccinated has pushed it “to the brink.” They say some non-emergent procedures have been rescheduled as a result and that patients can expect longer wait times for in-patient care and clinic-based services.
Hospital leaders held a media conference over Zoom to bring attention to the stress on healthcare facilities.
“As much as we hoped we were wrong, this appears to be a fairly steady trend as a result of the Thanksgiving holiday. So we don’t think we’ve seen the full breadth of this surge and probably won’t for another two to three weeks, and then of course we fear that will lead into what will ultimately become a post-Christmas and New Year’s surge,” said Maine Health CEO Andrew Mueller.
With 72% of all eligible Mainers now vaccinated, officials continue to encourage residents to get booster shots if they haven’t done so already. On Wednesday, Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah noted that as of several weeks ago, every patient on a ventilator at Maine’s major hospitals was unvaccinated. More than 60% of the COVID-19 patients in hospitals are unvaccinated, and the rate is as high as 80% at some facilities, Dr. Shah said.
Adding to the list of places Mainers can go to get their shots, the state opened up a new mass vaccination site at the Augusta Armory this week.
“I thank our partners at MEMA and the National Guard for their work to get shots into arms, and I encourage all Maine people to take advantage of this new drop in clinic in Augusta, which will be open after typical work hours, to get their free vaccine today,” Governor Janet Mills said Tuesday.
