Three more Mainers infected with the new coronavirus have died since Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 69. The Maine CDC also reported 50 new positive cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, for a total of 1,565.At an Augusta briefing on Thursday, Maine Center from Disease Control Director Dr. Nirav Shah said that two of the recent deaths were a woman in her 90s and a man in his 80s, both from Cumberland County. The third person who died was a man in his 60s from Penobscot County, Shah said, the first COVID-19 death there since the disease arrived in Maine.
Shah said the bulk of the new cases appear to be either close contacts of existing cases or the result of community transmission.
"That's another way of saying, for those of you in counties where community transmission is occurring, it's really occurring. It is out there."
The CDC has detected community transmission in four counties: York, Cumberland, Androscoggin and Penobscot. Shah is urging Mainers to continue to stay home as much as possible and to wear face masks when going out in public to prevent inadvertently spreading the disease.
Maine Department or Economic and Community Development Commissioner Heather Johnson announced at the briefing that the state will now allow Maine lodging businesses to begin accepting reservations immediately for visits beginning June 1, from Maine residents and from nonresidents who comply with Maine's 14-day quarantine requirement.
But asked whether out-of-state residents were essentially on an honor system to uphold the requirement, Johnson answered yes.
Of Maine's 50 new cases, 34 of them are in Cumberland County, eight are in York County and six are in Androscoggin County, Shah said. He said health officials are trying to determine the origin of the new cases, but he said no new outbreaks have occurred at Maine congregate care facilities.
He said 228 of Maine's cases have occurred in nursing homes and other congregate care facilities. But he said an outbreak at the Augusta Center for Health and Rehabilitation has waned, and no new cases have been detected there for 15 days.
"That's more than the standard incubation period, which is a positive sign," he said. "We continue to work with that facility to make sure that they have everything they need to prevent ongoing infections of COVID-19."
On Wednesday, Shah said there had also been no new cases at the Tall Pines facility in Waldo County for 18 days. He said the increase in COVID-19 cases in Maine over the past 24 hours is more likely due to community and household spread.
A total of 958 Mainers have recovered from COVID-19, and 207 people have been hospitalized, Shah said. Thirty-seven remain in the hospital, four fewer than Wednesday. Eighteen of them are in critical care. Of those, seven are on ventilators.
Updated 3:59 p.m. May 14, 2020
Maine Public digital producer Barbara Cariddi contributed to this report.
