Weekly unemployment claims in Maine are continuing to decrease.
The Maine Department of Labor said Thursday there were about 200 fewer claims filed last week than the previous week. The agency said about 7,500 weekly certifications were filed last week for state unemployment and another 7,880 weekly certifications were filed under federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.
About 14,300 weekly certifications were filed for the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.
The labor department said it has paid more than $2.4 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits since the start of the pandemic. About $1.8 billion of that money was paid via federal unemployment programs, the department said.
Nationally, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks. The Labor Department reported Thursday that claims increased by 4,000 to 353,000 from a pandemic low of 349,000 a week earlier.
In other pandemic news in Maine:
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THE NUMBERS
Cases continued to climb in Maine.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Maine has risen over the past two weeks from 187.33 per day on Aug. 11 to 204.71 per day on Aug. 25. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in Maine has risen over the past two weeks from 0.43 per day on Aug. 11 to 0.71 per day on Aug. 25.
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.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday there have been more than 74,000 positive cases of the virus in the state since the start of the pandemic. There have also been 928 deaths. State officials said about 71% of the state’s eligible population is fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said every county in the state is the site of substantial or high transmission of the coronavirus. The state is recommending indoor mask use in those areas. Only Sagadahoc and Cumberland counties are the site of moderate transmission, and no counties are the site of low transmission.
Some of the state’s most rural counties, including Aroostook and Hancock, are the site of high transmission.
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MANDATE LAWSUIT
A group of health care workers in Maine has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and health networks with a complaint that a requirement to vaccinate against COVID-19 violates religious freedom.
The federal lawsuit asked a judge to impose a temporary order preventing the mandate from taking effect. Mills announced the requirement earlier this month and it is slated to take effect on Oct. 1.
The lawsuit was brought by Florida-based Liberty Counsel, a right wing advocacy group. It was brought on behalf of nine people whose requests for religious exemptions to the requirement were rejected and hundreds of other unnamed health care workers, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Mills has defended the requirement, which has support from numerous health care organizations in the state.