The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported the second death of a Lincoln County resident from complications due to COVID-19 on Thursday, Feb. 25.
CDC spokesperson Robert Long said by email on Friday, Feb. 26 that the agency reported the death after a review of death certificates.
CDC Director Nirav Shah announced 41 new deaths from COVID-19 during the agency’s press briefing on Thursday, Feb. 25.
But Shah said 39 of the 41 were the result of the CDC’s ongoing review of death certificates and occurred between Jan. 26 and mid-February.
“We look at death certificates that have been filed in Maine to determine if the medical provider who signed the death certificate indicated that COVID-19 was a cause of death,” Shah said. “If we find those death certificates, we then compare them with folks that we know have tested positive for COVID. This helps us ensure that from an epidemiological perspective, we have a clear and accurate understanding of the toll COVID-19 is taking across the state.”
Janet Mae Gondek, 90, of Jefferson, died of complications from COVID-19 on Jan. 25, according to an obituary published in the Feb. 4 edition of The Lincoln County News.
Gondek’s death was not immediately reflected in the CDC’s statistics for Lincoln County. Long said patient privacy laws prevent him from releasing information about the death, except that it occurred between Jan. 26 and Feb. 14.
The Maine CDC had previously reported a second death of a Lincoln County resident, a man in his 50s, Nov. 23. But the CDC removed that death from Lincoln County’s count earlier in February.
Long said by email Feb. 10 that the change resulted from case investigators determining “that the primary residence of an individual who was originally reported as a Lincoln County resident was in another county.”
The first Lincoln County resident to die from COVID-19 was a 72-year-old Bristol woman who passed away July 26.
As of Thursday, Feb. 25, the Maine CDC has reported 577 cases of COVID-19 in Lincoln County residents since the pandemic began in mid-March 2020– 504 confirmed and 73 probable. There have been 15 hospitalizations.
