Governor Janet Mills, (D), the first woman Governor of Maine, announced this afternoon at the weekly MaineCDC briefing, that she has activated addidtional members of the Maine National Guard to help alleviate short-term capacity constraints at hospitals and maintain access to inpatient health care services for Maine people amid a sustained surge of COVID-19. This action is expected to be implemented next week and run through to the end of January 2022. This activation was also confirmed in a press release issued by her Augusta office just prior to the press conference.
Details on just where these 75 Maine National Guard members will be stationed are still being worked out. These personnel from the Guard are to function in non-clinical support roles. In other words, they will not be removed from clinical positions in which they may already be engaged. This action was taken because the numbers of new cases on a daily basis is not leveling off as hoped; rather it is increasing dramatically. Governor Mills emphasized that because of the strain on hospitals across the state, others in need of hospital care, such as surgeries, are being delayed in order to care for COVID-19 patients. The Governor also said that the number of hospitalizations “during a sustained surge of COVID-19 was driven almost entirely by the Delta variant. The vast majority of people hospitalized in Maine are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”
As of today, there are a record high 379 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Maine, including 117 in critical care and 60 on ventilators. The latter number of 60 is a tie for the high number said Dr. Shah, at the outset of the weekly briefing this afternoon. Dr. Nirav Shah is the Director of the MaineCDC. There are currently 42 available intensive care unit (ICU) beds available in Maine Dr. Shah reported. To date, there have been 125,373 cases of COVID-19 in Maine. Since yesterday, there have been 1,275 new cases. This unprecedented number of new cases affects the state’s ability to process tests on a single day, although the state is taking steps to remedy that Dr. Shah said.
Seventy-three percent of Maine residents have been fully vaccinated. There has been an increase of 67% in the number of vaccinations since last week with 9,377 doses being administered a day. Seven of those hospitalized are children. “Children are not spared. Children are affected,” said Dr. Shah. “The impression that COVID-19 does not target children needs to be put to rest.”
The Governor’s expanded capacity to be implemented by the additional 75 Maine National Guard members include:
1 Providing support to nursing facilities and swing bed units that accept patients discharged from hospitals experiencing critical care capacity challenges. Enhancing the ability of these “decompression sites” to accept more patients will allow hospitals to safely discharge more individuals, relieving a bottleneck that will then allow hospitals to improve important care for more people with COVID-19 and ensure delivery of health care for other serious health problems.
2. Helping administer monoclonal antibodies to prevent serious illness from COVID-19.
The Governor urged Maine people to get vaccinated and to wear face masks. Remember those seven children in Maine hospitals struggling to survive during this holiday season.
The weekly media briefing can be seen on Maine Public Television every Wednesday at 2:00 pm., unless rescheduled.