The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported two more deaths among people with COVID-19 on Tuesday as well as 16 new cases of the disease.
The total number of confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 in Maine stood at 3,838 on Tuesday, which is an increase of 16 after accounting for other adjustments to the daily case count since Monday. To date, at least 121 Mainers have died after contracting the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus.
A man rides a bicycle on Congress Street last week. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
The Maine CDC was reporting 398 active cases on Tuesday after accounting for the 121 deaths and the 3,319 individuals who have recovered from the disease. That is a decrease of 23 since Monday.
The additional deaths reported Tuesday are a woman in her 70s from Lincoln County and a man in his 70s from Androscoggin County, the agency said.
Maine had the third-lowest COVID-19 infection rate in the country as of Monday after Hawaii and Vermont, according to The New York Times coronavirus tracking system. Maine had the nation’s second-lowest new infection rate over the previous seven days, with just nine new cases for every 100,000 residents.
Two states where infection rates are surging, Florida and Louisiana, had 337 and 323 new cases per 100,000 residents during that period, according to the newspaper’s analysis.
The low rates in Maine have prompted some to call on the administration of Gov. Janet Mills to further relax restrictions.
On Monday, Republican members of the Maine House and Senate called on Mills to add Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the list of states where residents are not required to receive a negative test or quarantine for 14 days before visiting Maine. Those requirements are currently waived for residents of New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut because of low case rates in those states.
Mills responded by accusing Republicans of being more interested in collecting money from Massachusetts residents than in Mainers’ lives, calling the proposal “a Donald Trump-style assault on the very public health measures that have successfully protected Maine people.”
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, is expected to hold a briefing on the coronavirus situation in Maine at 2 p.m.
This story will be updated.
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