The statistics that have been coming out of the Maine Center for Disease Control regarding COVID-19 infections are insufficient for the public to make informed decisions regarding greater engagement into their communities. The public should know the age and gender of those 78 or 80 people who have sadly died and where they died and whether they expired even with hospitalization and with or without ventilation.

As of May 26, 2,074 or .00159 of Maine’s 1.3 million population had been infected and of those infected 12% (257) were hospitalized; and, .037 percent (78) have died. That means 1,817 or 87% were not hospitalized or are not yet anyway. If the public is going to be engaged in dialogue with government officials and among themselves regarding risks, we need all the facts, not just percentages by age and gender of those who contracted the virus.

It would also be useful to know by age, gender and county of the 257 people who were hospitalized and how many required ventilation. It is not clear to me, given what information is available, how many of these 257 also died, but not just those who were hospitalized have died.

Granted, the shutdown and quarantine have reduced infections, but this additional information is going to allow the citizenry to weigh the risks of exposure of infection against all outcomes as the state opens itself up.

Mark Wood, Poland