The Mills administration is making 1.1 million COVID-19 tests available to schools to distribute free to students and staff.

The at-home tests will be paid for with federal funds and distributed to any Maine schools that choose to participate, according to an announcement Thursday by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

Tests are being made available as Maine sees a slow rise in virus cases coinciding with the spread of the more contagious omicron BA.2 subvariant. The new strain of omicron now represents more than 70 percent of positive tests processed by Walgreens pharmacies in Maine, according to the company’s latest data.

“This new testing option will help families and school staff to quickly identify cases of COVID-19 in individuals who are close contacts, or have symptoms, to prevent them from unknowingly spreading this highly contagious disease while at school,” DHHS Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav D. Shah said in a joint written statement. “We encourage schools to take advantage of this opportunity as we remain vigilant against the spread of new variants. The best defense against COVID-19 remains vaccination, and we urge Maine people to get vaccinated and boosted.”

Maine reported seven active outbreaks in Maine schools Thursday and 1,398 school-based cases in the past 30 days. Those numbers are up from a week ago, when there were six outbreaks and 1,166 cases.

Schools with active outbreaks include Brunswick High School and Maranacook Community High School in Readfield.

Health officials are warning that cases could rise again nationally in the coming weeks. While the country overall has not seen an uptick, most states in the Northeast – including Maine – have seen average case counts increase over the past 14 days.

On Thursday, Maine reported 233 new cases of COVID-19 and 11 additional deaths. Maine’s average daily case count has risen about 10 percent over the past two weeks, according to state data, while most states in the Northeast are seeing more significant increases.

Meanwhile, the number of patients with COVID-19 in Maine hospitals dropped again Thursday after briefly climbing above 100 earlier this week.

There were 95 hospitalized patients statewide Thursday, including 23 people in critical care and four on ventilators, according to the Maine CDC. That is down slightly from 99 on Wednesday and 104 on Tuesday.

Since the pandemic began, Maine has recorded 237,218 cases of COVID-19, and 2,219 deaths.

Nationwide, case numbers have slightly declined – by around 2 percent – over the past two weeks, even as the more contagious omicron BA.2 subvariant has spread.

But COVID cases are on the rise again in pockets of the country, including the Northeast, where omicron BA.2 spread first and became the dominant strain of the virus about two weeks ago. Cases have risen between 40 and 65 percent over the last two weeks in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, according to the New York Times pandemic tracker.

Even as case counts rise in the Northeast, hospitalizations have continued to decline.

Hospital patient counts typically rise two to three weeks after daily case counts increase. However, while many U.S. experts are expecting a rise in cases because of omicron BA.2, they do not expect a significant increase in hospitalizations.

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