Thirteen more Mainers died as health officials on Thursday reported 702 new coronavirus cases across the state.
Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 24,201, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 23,499 on Tuesday.
Of those, 20,637 have been confirmed positive, while 3,564 were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
The latest deaths include a man in his 80s, a woman her 60s, a woman in her 70s and a woman in her 90s from Aroostook County; a woman in her 80s and two women in their 90s from Cumberland County; a woman in her 80s from Hancock County; a man in his 50s and two men in their 70s from Oxford County; and a man in his 80s and a man in his 90s from York County. The statewide death toll now stands at 347.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 426.9, down from 431.6 a day ago and 460.6 a week ago but up from 172 a month ago.
New cases were reported in Androscoggin (51), Aroostook (32), Cumberland (178), Franklin (2), Hancock (19), Kennebec (48), Knox (9), Lincoln (5), Oxford (19), Penobscot (79), Piscataquis (5), Sagadahoc (20), Somerset (6), Waldo (2), Washington (20) and York (215) counties, state data show.
So far, 1,065 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. As of Wednesday, 177 people are currently hospitalized, with 48 in critical care and 19 on ventilators.
An additional 48 people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing the total number of Mainers who have recovered to 11,374. That means there are at least 12,480 active cases in the state, up from 11,839 on Wednesday.
As of Thursday, 27,122 Mainers have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
There have been 1,177,522 negative test results out of 1,207,730 overall. About 2.4 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 7,233 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 97 have been concentrated. Other cases have been reported in Androscoggin (2,667), Aroostook (617), Franklin (451), Hancock (550), Kennebec (1,812), Knox (370), Lincoln (301), Oxford (1,115), Penobscot (2,050), Piscataquis (117), Sagadahoc (387), Somerset (743), Waldo (380), Washington (377) and York (5,030) counties. Information about where an additional case was reported wasnt immediately available.
As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 19,745,885 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 342,414 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
(NEXSTAR) An estimated 145 employees at a Costco in Washington state were infected with the coronavirus, local officials said.
The Costco, which employs just under 400 people, currently remains open and site-wide testing is ongoing. Last week, the count of positive tests was 68 employees.
According to the Yakima County Health District, in which the Costco is located, all employees at the site are being tested for the virus. Those infected have been sent home to isolate and quarantine.
Officials noted that the sharp increase in cases mimics the type of activity that happens after some sort of superspreader event, but did not identify this particular incident as a superspreader.
Melissa Sixberry, the Director of Yakima County Disease Control, said she anticipates that the number of cases will continue to rise as results are received.
At this point in time, all positive cases have been identified and sent home, added Dr. Larry Jecha, Interim Health Officer for Yakima County. Weekly site- wide testing will ensure that any new cases that occur, will be promptly identified, and those staff members will also be directed to isolate and quarantine. This, in addition to ensuring that Costco, and its shoppers, continue to follow the proper COVID-19 safety precautions, will mitigate the risk for potential COVID-19 infection.
Costco representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On its website, the big-box retailer said it is closely monitoring the changing situation and complying with public health guidance.
Protocols to keep shoppers and employees safe include limiting the number of people at each location, encouraging social distancing, reducing some services (such as samples) and sanitizing surfaces.
The number of coronavirus patients admitted to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor has continued peaking during the last few days of 2020 even as the numbers have leveled off slightly at other hospitals around the state.
A record high 55 coronavirus patients were hospitalized at the Bangor hospital on New Years Eve, accounting for nearly a third of the states roughly 177 daily virus hospitalizations, according to data from parent organization Northern Light Health.
An average of 52 patients were hospitalized at EMMC the states second largest hospital each day over the last week, up from 44 in the week before Christmas and 27 in the week before that.
That uptick comes as the states largest hospital, Maine Medical Center in Portland, has averaged just 32 patients in the last week.
The total number of coronavirus patients hospitalized in Maine has also tapered off somewhat from a record high of 198 on Dec. 14, according to the COVID Tracking Project. It has averaged 183 over the last week.
However, some health officials have expressed concern that indoor gatherings and travel from the Christmas and New Years holidays could contribute to new waves of infections in the coming weeks even as health care workers and nursing home residents start to get vaccinated.
At EMMC, officials recently placed new restrictions on family visits to patients to help lower the risk of spreading the virus. The hospital also recently had to contain a coronavirus outbreak that infected at least 48 people, including some patients in a surgical post-operative unit. However, the hospital said that some of the cases were also caused by workers catching the virus out in the community.
So far, the hospital has not had to take dramatic steps to free up staff and capacity such as systematically delaying other procedures such as mammograms and colonoscopies, according to Northern Light Health spokesperson Suzanne Spruce.
Our increasing numbers across Northern Light Health [hospitals] and specifically at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center are, of course, a continued concern, Spruce said. At this time we are able to maintain our critical and routine services, but continue to monitor bed capacity, staffing, and other resources and will adjust accordingly.
Spruce also reiterated the need for Mainers to take steps to limit the spread of coronavirus and decrease the risk that more workers or people could get sick, including wearing face coverings in public, avoiding gatherings outside of their household, practicing good hand hygiene and remaining at least six feet apart.
More than 6,500 Veterans Affairs patients died from coronavirus complications this year and more than 151,000 were infected as part of the global pandemic, according to data released by the department.
Most of those cases came in the fall of 2020, as coronavirus numbers spiked throughout much of the U.S. Although the pandemic began in March, half of the VA deaths and nearly two-thirds of the total VA infections were reported in the last 100 days of the year.
The 6,560 total deaths equate to roughly 22 a day since the start of the pandemic, making coronavirus more deadly than the roughly 17 veterans a day lost to suicide.
Of that total, about 40 percent were inpatients at VA medical facilities at the time of death. The others were individuals being cared for outside of VA hospitals but connected to department medical services
The VA also reported 4,514 coronavirus-related burials this year.
In addition to patient totals, at least 91 VA employees have died from coronavirus complications. VA officials have declined to say how many of those VA workers who died had direct contact with medical center patients or other veterans.
Nationally, more than 337,000 Americans have died from health conditions linked to the virus.
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As of Tuesday, VA officials reported 11,082 active virus cases among patients connected to 138 sites across the country. Thats down almost 30 percent in the past month, but more than three times higher than the level on Sept. 1.
VA leaders have downplayed spikes in coronavirus deaths and cases in recent months, saying that percentages of veterans who need hospitalization because of coronavirus complications has remained consistent or decreased as total cases have risen.
The number of VA inpatients at medical facilities across the country rose to 1,380 this week, the highest reported level since the start of the pandemic.
Nationally, more than 19.4 million Americans have contracted the virus in the past nine months.
The department has administered about 1.15 million coronavirus tests in the past nine months as part of its screening for the illness.
On Tuesday, VA officials reported that in the past two weeks more than 5,000 veterans residing in Community Living Centers and more than 50,000 health care employees have been administered COVID-19 vaccine doses.
As vaccines become more widely available, we will continue to implement our plan to offer them to any veteran or employee who wants one at no cost, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a statement.
The department has identified at least 155 sites across the country where veterans and employees will be able to receive the vaccine. But it also has warned that it may take months to meet the demand, which is expected to surpass more than 7 million individuals.
The coronavirus relief bill was part of an omnibus package that included other government funding. None of the coronavirus relief funding is going to these programs.
WASHINGTON Since the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill, which includes $600 stimulus checks for Americans, was approved, memes and social media posts claim that the funding is also going to the Smithsonian Institution, arts and humanities groups and for foreign aid to Sudan, Ukraine and other nations.
THE QUESTION
Are millions and even billions of coronavirus relief dollars going to foreign countries and arts groups?
THE ANSWER
No. The coronavirus relief bill was part of an omnibus spending package enacted into law on Dec. 27, 2020, but none of the $900 billion in COVID-19 funding will go to other countries or to arts and humanities groups.
WHAT WE FOUND
Congress passed $1.4 trillion in 2021 appropriations and a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill in an omnibus package on Dec. 21, which President Trump signed into law on Dec. 27. An omnibus bill is a bill that consolidates several different bills to be voted on as a single provision, according to VoteSmart.org.
In this case, the omnibus legislation consolidated 12 appropriations bills, the coronavirus relief measure and spending authorizations for the year, the U.S. House of Representatives said in a news release.
The emergency coronavirus relief spending does not allocate any money to foreign nations or to any arts or humanities groups.
But the appropriations measures do, and although the dollar figures may be correct, the memes dont provide context.
For example, the $1.03 billion budgeted for the Smithsonian Institution is $14.6 million below its figure for 2020 and $77.6 million below President Trumps budget request, according to a summary posted by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, signed into law by President Trump in 2018, authorizes spending $1.5 billion, but the money goes to U.S. agencies to advance American interests, blunt Chinas influence and forestall terrorism and cybersecurity attacks.
But even those expenditures are dwarfed by what the IRS has, and will, send to Americans in stimulus payments.
The total in the first round was an estimated $292 billion as of Aug. 28, 2020, says the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation. A second round at half that amount would be $146 billion.
Marie Colasurdo was a Renaissance woman in her own right.
She filled her home with the sounds of opera, including Luciano Pavarotti and Mario Lanza.
She maintained an impressive classical music record collection and usually had one spinning on the record player in the living room of the Southwest Portland home where she and her husband Angelo raised their nine children.
Later, when her children were older, Colasurdo would go on to lead the Portland Opera Guild.
Colasurdo, a master home economist and deeply faithful woman who imbued in her children a love of the arts, died Dec. 9. The onset of COVID-19 accelerated her declining health. She was three days from turning 92.
Colasurdos children describe a warm and loving mother who handled the task of raising a large family if not with ease she had the children in a 10-year span -- then certainly with grace.
She grew into that role, said her daughter, Christine Colasurdo, who lives in Portland. She rose to the occasion. She became this matriarch of nine children. That was her job trying to support us and be there for us.
Her mother, she said, gave those she loved the greatest gift: her attention.
She was very much aware of helping others and being present for others, she said.
Born Dec. 12, 1928, Colasurdo was raised in Chicago. She was one of seven children six girls and a boy born to a barber and homemaker. Her father immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia as a teen. Her mother took in sewing jobs to help support the family. They lived above her fathers barber shop.
She was 22 when she met Angelo Colasurdo, who was raised in Seattle and was attending dental school in Chicago. He rented a room in a house a half-block from the apartment where Maries family lived.
The Colasurdos 63-year marriage was featured in The Oregonian five years ago, shortly before Angelo Colasurdo died from a heart condition.
The couple spoke about their first meeting.
My younger sister got all excited that she saw this good-looking guy walking by, Marie Colasurdo recalled during that interview. The next day, my mother had made a pie. She took the pan and the pie over to him.
It was when Angelo Colasurdo, who was known as A.J., returned the empty pie plate that he met his future bride.
The couple moved to Portland, where Angelo Colasurdo established a dental practice. He worked there for 53 years before retiring in 2006. His son, John, and grandson, Vincent, joined the practice, which continues today.
Marie Colasurdo was a city girl, her daughters recalled, but she gamely headed into the Pacific Northwest woods with her husband and their large brood for camping trips. She learned to love the outdoors, they said.
She came from inner-city poverty to the West Coast where she didnt know anyone, said her daughter, Celeste Colasurdo, who also lives in Portland. She had to build a whole new community for herself.
Her daughters said their mother learned traditional Czech cooking and would make savory chicken and pork dumplings, and sweet ones, too, filled with plums. For her husband, whose family immigrated from Italy, she learned how to make homemade ravioli.
Colasurdo especially loved to bake berry pies almost as much as her husband enjoyed eating them, the couples children recalled.
He was always complimentary of her cooking, Christine Colasurdo said.
Indeed, Angelo Colasurdo mentioned his wifes pies in the 2015 Oregonian piece.
Her pies! he exclaimed. Poor thing, shes got arthritis now, but her pies were so outstanding. Oh, my goodness! She knew how to make that dough just right.
Christine Colasurdo said her mothers own parents couldnt afford music lessons for their children so Marie Colasurdo became an enthusiast instead of a musician.
She said her mom showed her the vibrancy of Portlands classical music organizations, from choral groups to Portlands all-classical station, 89.9.
Marie Colasurdo was a longtime member of the choir at St. Thomas More Catholic Church.
In retirement, the Colasurdos moved to Sauvie Island, where Marie started Sauvie Island Bed & Breakfast.
She got that going all by herself and did a great job, said Marita Ingalsbe, the couples oldest child, who lives in Portland. She just loved people.
A constant in Colasurdos life was her love of the news, which her daughters saw as a reflection of her commitment to her community. She was an avid reader of The Oregonian, they said, and she frequently wrote letters to the editor about the news of the day.
I was thinking of how important The Oregonian was to her, Ingalsbe said. She read it up until the last couple of days of her life.
Ingalsbe recalled as a child seeing her tired mom at the kitchen table at the end of a long day of taking care of her kids and the family home.
I remember seeing her sitting at the kitchen table with her eyes closed trying to finish the paper, she said.
When the end came this month, Colasurdo was ready, her daughters said.
She found comfort in her faith.
Im going to shower all the good things down on you from heaven, she told her grandson, Pablo Olavarrieta, 21.
In addition to her three daughters in Portland, Colasurdo is survived by daughter Terese Stassinos of Santa Barbara, California, and sons John and Bernie, both of Portland, and son Michael of Eugene. The Colasurdos lost two daughters, Jeanine Ierulli and Elizabeth Colasurdo, to cancer.
Colasurdo remained focused on her family until the end.
Dont worry, she told them.
She knew she was going to a good place, said Ingalsbe.
-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie
LONDON Britain on Wednesday became the first country to give emergency authorization to the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, clearing the path for a cheap and easy-to-store shot that much of the world will rely on to help end the pandemic.
In a departure from prevailing strategies around the world, the British government also decided to begin giving as many people as possible a first vaccine dose rather than holding back supplies for quick second shots, greatly expanding the number of people who will be inoculated.
That decision put Britain at the vanguard of a far-reaching and uncertain experiment in speeding up vaccinations, one that some scientists say could alleviate the suffering wrought by a pandemic that has been killing hundreds of people each day in Britain and thousands more around the world.
The global effort to accelerate vaccinations, coming as a new, more contagious variant of the virus is spreading, gathered steam in many places on Wednesday.
China said clinical trial results showed high efficacy for one of its vaccine candidates, an announcement that hastened the global rollout of hundreds of millions of doses of Chinese vaccines but was short on crucial details. Russias Sputnik V vaccine, long criticized for being introduced prematurely, also began use this week in Argentina, Belarus, Hungary and Serbia, the first other countries to begin injecting it en masse. And Argentina quickly followed Britain in authorizing the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, with India expected to do the same soon.
Britains two moves on Wednesday authorizing an easy-to-make, easy-to-deliver vaccine, and delaying second vaccine doses offered one blueprint for how to ramp up inoculation campaigns that have so far been entangled in logistical and manufacturing problems there and in much of the West.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca shot is poised to become the worlds dominant form of inoculation. At $3 to $4 a dose, it is a fraction of the cost of some other vaccines. And it can be shipped and stored in normal refrigerators for six months, rather than in the ultracold freezers required by the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, making it easier to administer in poorer and harder-to-reach areas.
Delaying second vaccine doses, too, could double the number of people eligible for shots in the coming weeks and eventually lighten the toll of the virus not only in Britain but also in countries facing years of vaccine shortages, some scientists said. While any one person may be better off with the full two doses, they said, society as a whole benefits if more people are given the partial protection of a single dose for the time being.
Were talking about potentially vaccinating in the billions more people in a given year, versus the alternative, which is to go with two doses and let them sit in a freezer, said Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard who was one of the earliest proponents of delaying second doses. There may be a trade-off for each of those individuals, but at the population level, you may end up saving many more lives.
Still, other scientists believe that Britain overshot the available evidence, potentially leaving older people and health-care workers without the full protection of two vaccine doses amid dreadful wintertime surges. Britain did without the public meetings or voluminous briefings that have preceded American regulatory decisions. No trials have explicitly tested the long-term efficacy of a single shot.
And what limited evidence exists about the protection afforded by a single dose clashed with scientists fears that antibody responses would wane over time, potentially falling below a protective threshold.
What is the longevity of any protective immunity for one dose, versus two doses? said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Wheres the data?
Britain will delay the second, booster doses not only of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine but also the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. That vaccine, in use in the country for several weeks, has been shown in clinical trials to have considerable efficacy after a single dose. Pfizer, though, cautioned on Wednesday that the single-dose efficacy data does not extend beyond when people receive their second shots, three weeks after the first. The company said that two doses are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease.
For Britain, where hospitals are overwhelmed by a deluge of cases of a new and more contagious coronavirus variant, the rollout of more vaccines offered a distant hope of a reprieve. Starting on Monday, the health service is preparing to vaccinate as many as two million people per week at makeshift sites in soccer stadiums and racecourses, though the first shipment will only include 530,000 doses.
With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:
Instead of administering the two vaccine shots within a month as was originally planned, clinicians in Britain will wait as long as 12 weeks to give people second doses, the government said. Doctors were scrambling on Wednesday to push back hundreds of appointments for second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and fill them with first-time recipients.
Clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had already subjected participants to delayed second doses. Most participants in the British trial were given the two doses at least nine weeks apart. British regulators said on Wednesday that the first dose had 73 percent efficacy in protecting against Covid-19 in the period between that shot taking effect and a second shot being administered. But scientists cautioned that those figures held for a subset of trial participants and had a limited underlying immunological rationale.
Scientists have also expressed concerns about the Oxford-AstraZeneca group not having enough data on older people to fully assess the vaccines efficacy in that group. Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said in an interview on Wednesday that more evidence in older people would emerge from an ongoing American trial that has nearly enrolled all 30,000 of its volunteers.
The United States and the European Union have indicated that they are unlikely to authorize the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine until at least February.
When given in two full-strength doses, the regimen authorized by Britain, AstraZenecas vaccine showed 62 percent efficacy in clinical trials considerably lower than the roughly 95 percent efficacy achieved by Pfizer and Modernas shots. No one who received the vaccine in the clinical trials developed severe Covid-19 or was hospitalized.
British regulators said that the vaccines efficacy appeared to rise to 80 percent in a smaller group of volunteers who were given the two doses roughly three months, rather than a single month, apart, a result that has not been published but that nevertheless emboldened the regulators to authorize a longer gap between doses.
Professor Pollard said that the longer interval provoked higher levels of antibodies in participants. And that finding, he said, may help solve a puzzle that has hung over the Oxford-AstraZeneca group: why the vaccine had a 90 percent efficacy in volunteers who were given a half-strength, rather than full-strength, initial dose. Those volunteers happened to get their two doses further apart, making it likely that the higher efficacy was a result of the elongated gap between doses, and not the size of the initial dose, as originally believed.
Menelas Pangalos, the executive in charge of much of AstraZenecas research and development, said in an interview on Wednesday that the company would now work to refine the interval between doses, focusing on a possible sweet spot of 8 to 12 weeks. But scientists said that any such efforts required considerably more data.
And analysts cautioned that Britains health service may struggle to persuade people to take a vaccine that appears less effective than other available shots, but that nevertheless could hasten the end of the pandemic.
Much of the world is looking to AstraZeneca in part because it has set more ambitious manufacturing targets than other Western vaccine makers. It has said that it expects to make up to three billion doses next year a haul that, at two doses per person, would be enough to inoculate nearly one in five people worldwide. The company has pledged to make the vaccine available at cost around the world until at least July 2021, and in poorer countries into perpetuity.
This is very good news for the world, Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said of British regulators go-ahead. It makes a global approach to a global pandemic much easier.
For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who has faced withering criticism for his handling of the pandemic, the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca could bring some relief. The government on Wednesday put more than three-quarters of England in a virtual lockdown, and delayed the reopening of secondary schools in January.
Since authorizing Pfizers vaccine on Dec. 2, Britain has used it to vaccinate 617,000 people. But the country has struggled to administer it beyond hospitals and doctors offices, leaving some of its highest-priority recipients, like nursing home residents, still vulnerable.
Along with doctors, nurses, and technicians, the order also applies to a swath of direct and indirect health-care providers including pharmacists, students, EMTs, and clinical workers at schools and detention facilities. Those workers are being asked to identify a place to obtain the vaccine if its not being provided through an employer.
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A waning 2020 delivered a final kick on the way out Thursday with the county health department announcing 62 additional COVID-19 deaths, a new single-day record arriving on New Years Eve.
And there was an extra reason for concern. The county public health lab, working with local researchers, confirmed three more cases of the United Kingdom coronavirus strain Thursday, bringing the total to four, including the initial case involving a man in his 30s announced Wednesday.
Officials said none of the four are related and had no contact with each other before testing positive.
The three additional cases confirmed Thursday were all men. Case investigators have interviewed two of the three who reported no recent travel outside the country. Two of the three new cases were in their 40s and the third was in his 50s. The third case for whom travel information was not available had not yet been interviewed.
They live in La Mesa, Otay Mesa, Mission Beach and the Rancho Bernardo-Carmel Mountain area.
The county public health lab was still awaiting the results of genetic testing to confirm whether a close contact of Wednesdays first UK strain subject, who was said to have been experiencing symptoms of coronavirus infection, also has the UK strain.
Dr. Eric McDonald, medical director of the countys epidemiology department, said Thursday evening that the subject, a woman also in her 30s who is the spouse of Wednesdays UK case, has been admitted to a hospital after testing positive for coronavirus. Genetic testing being performed by Scripps Research will be necessary to confirm that the UK strain was involved, but that seems very likely at this point.
I would be shocked if it doesnt come back with whole-genome sequencing that confirms it, McDonald said.
He said the three additional UK cases confirmed through genetic testing Thursday were actually tested between Dec. 20 and Dec. 22. Helix, a local company that the county contracts with for testing, looked through its records after the first case appeared and discovered the results as having the telltale s drop signature that marked Wednesdays case.
Having cases from different parts of the county that did not know each other, he said, shows that this strain, which is thought to spread more easily than other variants, has been among us for some time.
This didnt just spread to that many different parts of the county among people who dont know each other in the past two weeks, McDonald said. The dispersal of these cases geographically tells you that it has probably been in the county for a longer period of time.
With 99 deaths announced in just the past two days, December is by far the deadliest month of the pandemic. According to county records, 488 deaths have been recorded in December, more than twice the previous monthly record of 197 tallied in July.
The most recent deaths announced Thursday range in age from 45 to 100 with three in their 40s. As is always the case, the deaths announced on any given day did not all occur the day before the announcement. It can take days or weeks for death certificates and causes of death to be finalized before they are reported to the public.
Taking the latest group into account, records show that a total of 28 deaths occurred on Dec. 22, tying Dec. 18 for the deadliest day of the pandemic.
McDonald said he reviews each and every death certificate before the county releases new numbers. Seeing so many in December, he said, has been particularly harrowing.
Every one of those is a person and has a family, McDonald said. What this means is that there are more and more San Diego families that are coming to grips with the fact that this is a real and deadly pandemic.
Deaths are what epidemiologists call a lagging indicator, generally occurring weeks or months after infections take hold. As such, a spike in deaths does not, in and of itself, say all that much about how a pathogen such as the novel coronavirus is spreading in a community. The number of new positive cases coming in daily provides a more immediate sense of the current pace of infection.
The final COVID-19 report of 2020 lists 3,083 new cases, once again jumping over the 3,000 mark after three straight days below that mark. The result could signal the arrival of a new wave of cases connected to Christmas celebrations, given that the average incubation period for the virus the amount of time spent in the body before symptoms generally begin to appear is about 6 days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pressure continues to mount on local hospitals with 1,580 total COVID-19 patients in beds across the county Wednesday. COVID-positive patients occupied 35 percent of the 4,504 total beds in use. Intensive care admissions held steady at 621 with 386 having a COVID-19 diagnosis and 235 without.
