Hospitalizations for COVID-19 remained low over the past week across much of Maine. Lewiston’s Central Maine Medical Center and Portland’s hospitals saw modest increases, while several other hospitals that have consistently treated such patients fell to zero.
Maine Medical Center, which has handled nearly half the state’s coronavirus burden through most of the crisis, saw the number of confirmed COVID-19 inpatients rise steadily from eight to 13 for the week ending Thursday, compared to peaks of 35 on both April 7 and May 25.
Portland’s other major hospital, Mercy, had an average of 2.9 COVID-19 inpatients each day, up from 1.7 the week before but roughly a third of its burden in mid-to-late May. Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center in Biddeford had between three and five inpatients each day for the third week running, but York Hospital in York had none.
CMMC had an average of 3.5 COVID-19 inpatients for the six days ending Wednesday, up from 2.6 the week before and 1.1 the week before that. But Lewiston’s other hospital, St. Mary’s, had an average of 0.9 inpatients a day for the week ending Thursday, and no patients at all after Tuesday.
MaineGeneral in Augusta – the hospital that has had the fourth largest pandemic burden after Maine Med and SMHC – had no COVID-19 inpatients the entire week, a first since the pandemic began in mid-March.
Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor averaged 1.1 patients for the week while Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick continued a streak of having no such patients that started May 24.
Franklin Memorial in Farmington had between 0 and 2 patients during the week, while two smaller hospitals that had reported having patients earlier in June – Waldo in Belfast and Bridgton – had none for the week.
MaineHealth’s hospitals, including MaineMed, SMHC and Franklin, have not been reporting Sunday numbers for three weeks, because of an administrative change, but are working on a remedy to correct this.
Hospitalizations can end three ways: recovery, death, or transfer to another facility. The data do not include outpatients or inpatients who were suspected of having the virus but were never tested.
Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, because it typically takes two or three weeks after exposure for an acutely affected person to become sick enough to be admitted, but it is one metric that is not affected by how many people are tested.
The Press Herald’s survey is for the week ending July 2. It compiles data received directly from the hospitals and hospital networks. It includes most of the state’s hospitals and accounts for the vast majority of the statewide hospitalizations reported each week by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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