In today’s Maine Sunday Telegram I wrote about how Maine has been reopening even as it has missed the prerequisites set by the White House, the testing thresholds advised by public health experts, and some of the benchmark metrics set by Gov. Janet Mills’s administration itself. Leading experts from across the country warn such a tact has risks for both the economy and public health.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention refused to answer written questions for this story and denied interview requests with its director, Niav Shah, for nearly two weeks. Gov. Mills’s office also did not directly answer questions, sending instead a statement that didn’t address most of them.
Earlier this week I reported on how Maine is now the only state in the country that cannot compile and present daily testing data.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.