... late last year I heard about a cluster of fevers in December. And the chorus of warning voices grew between Christmas and New Year’s. As soon as we all returned from the New Year’s break on January 2 or 3, my office started to prepare. By February 8, we had distributed PPE [personal protective equipment] to nursing homes, hospitals and first responders. We had our contract tracing plan all mapped out. This was weeks ahead of our first documented case of COVID-19 on March 12.
How important are testing and contact tracing to your response?
They’re essential. Though we’ve had relatively few cases, we have 100 people tracing, and we have plans to hire more. Since May, we’ve partnered with a Maine-based laboratory, IDEXX, that has a very deep bench in reagents. So unlike some states, we’ve had no problems getting reagents for #tests. Everyone in the state 12 months or older can get tested at no cost, no questions asked.
Do you think part of Maine’s success comes from its being relatively rural and remote?
Not really. Other rural states such as Idaho, the Dakotas, West Virginia have much higher rates. That suggests that geography doesn’t have much explanatory power.
What metrics do you rely on to measure success?
Our goal is not to eradicate the disease but to suppress the virus to put us in a favorable position for vaccination. Our test positivity rate is consistently under 1 percent, and for weeks it [remained] under 0.6 percent. That’s the lowest in the U.S., and we think that puts us in a good position.
What went wrong with the federal government’s response to the virus?
It’s unclear…. We do know that on February 25, when [Nancy] Messonnier, [head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases], warned Americans to prepare for a pandemic, she was threatened [with firing by President Donald Trump in a call to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal], and the CDC started to take a back seat.
What would be your first step in changing the federal response?
Stop candy coating. The communication approach has been filtered through what folks in Washington, D.C., want the intended impact to be: it’s outcome driven, and that doesn’t work. They have to stop shaping the message to conform with what they think people want to believe.
Can you a give concrete example of this distorted messaging?
The rollout of [the antiviral] #remdesivir, as though it were “mission accomplished.” We actually knew very little at that time about whether the drug worked in the treatment of COVID-19. This happened with other therapies as well.
You give regular press briefings on public radio, as well as daily interviews on Maine AM radio. What do you hope to accomplish with these frequent interactions with the press and public?
All too often, government is on the defensive, and our first inclination is to say, ‘Here’s what [the government has] done; here’s what we need to do.’ But in a high-anxiety, low-trust situation like this, you have to empower people to act. Every five or six weeks, I take stock of where we are and come up with a couple of key asks of the people in Maine. For example, this week, I asked them to commit to get a flu shot. It’s a concrete call to action, something everyone can do for themselves and their family. And it builds confidence and trust.
