A much higher percentage of older residents in Maine have had their coronavirus vaccines, but younger residents are starting to catch up.
About 72% of Maine residents age 40 and older have had their final dose of the vaccine, the office of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills reported on Wednesday. The rate for residents who are younger than 40 but eligible for a vaccine is about 38%.
Older residents have a higher rate of vaccination in part because some age groups became eligible for the vaccine sooner. There is also no vaccine yet available for people younger than 12, and 12- to 15-year-old Maine residents only became eligible recently.
The state as a whole has a vaccination rate of about 52%, which is one of the highest in the country. Officials with the Maine Center for Disease Control have said they are seeing steady progress in getting the vaccine to younger residents.
“The virus is on the run, but not yet out of sight,” Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah said.
The number of daily cases of the virus in Maine has dipped below 100 and the number of daily deaths is close to zero.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Maine did not increase over the past two weeks, going from 224.00 new cases per day on May 18 to 82.86 new cases per day on June 1. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in Maine did not increase over the past two weeks, going from 1.29 deaths per day on May 18 to 0.29 deaths per day on June 1.
The AP is using data collected by Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering to measure outbreak caseloads and deaths across the United States.
Maine CDC reported on Thursday that there have been 837 deaths and more than 67,000 positive cases of the virus in the state since the start of the pandemic.
