Bangor Studio/Membership Department
63 Texas Ave.
Bangor, ME 04401

Lewiston Studio
1450 Lisbon St.
Lewiston, ME 04240

Portland Studio
323 Marginal Way
Portland, ME 04101

Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
© 2025 Maine Public
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.
Due to equipment upgrades, WMHD (Greenville) and WBSQ (Monson) will be shut off during the daytime hours for the duration of this week.

Maine May Have Received Its Last Shipment Of Protective Equipment From The Federal Stockpile

John Minchillo
/
Associated Press
A worker, wearing personal protective equipment, packs splash guards into a box during a mass manufacturing operation to supply New York City government with protection to distribute against COVID-19 transmission, Friday, March 27, 2020, in New York.

Maine Center for Disease Control Director Nirav Shah says the federal government has shipped what could be the state’s last shipment of personal protective equipment, or PPE, for health care workers.

“What we understand is that this third shipment may be the last cache that Maine CDC receives for quite some time. We are hoping that’s not true,” Shah says.

Shah, along with Gov. Janet Mills, have been pushing the feds to send more PPE, which is worn by workers as they care for patients infected by COVID-19 and also to test for the disease.

Shah says the state is looking at ways to obtain more PPE through Maine manufacturers, but he was not sure how quickly that could happen.

Forty-three health care workers have tested positive for COVID-19, roughly 15 percent of Maine’s confirmed cases.

Shah says the state is looking to determine if those workers were infected on the job or elsewhere.

Originally published March 30, 2020 at 5:11 p.m. ET.

Journalist Steve Mistler is Maine Public’s chief politics and government correspondent. He is based at the State House.