Maine is reporting another 652 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday.
The Maine CDC says three more people have died with the disease, as the delta variant continues to drive a late summer surge.
The state has recorded a total of 979 deaths and 82,607 infections during the course of the pandemic.
As of Thursday, 194 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Maine. Close to a third are in critical care, and 38 are on ventilators.
Dr. James Jarvis of Northern Light Health said during a briefing this week that patients are sicker than in previous surges of the pandemic and require more staff care.
"Which means they're not able to care for other individuals. And that's what our major concern is across the state, is bed capacity, nursing staffing, and the ability to take care of everybody else, in addition to those afflicted with Covid-19," Jarvis says.
Jarvis says the majority of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated. That's also the case at MaineHealth. Officials say of the 10 people on ventilators at its hospitals, nine are unvaccinated.
