Health

The rollout of Maine’s first COVID-19 vaccinations for high risk health workers gained momentum today. About half a dozen hospitals are now running clinics, and by midday, the state CDC reported that close to 500 health care workers had received their first dose.

Vaccinations for COVID-19 began in Maine on Tuesday. Frontline workers at Maine Medical Center in Portland and Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford were the first to receive doses. It’s the beginning of a massive effort to get the pandemic under control, and a bright spot for health care workers as the case and death count keeps climbing.

The first 2,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Maine Monday morning at Northern Light’s Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and Mercy Hospitals in Portland.

Vaccine preparations are underway at long-term care facilities across the country, where workers and the most at-risk residents are supposed to be the first to get the shots as early as next week.

The first shipments for a COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Maine next week, and the Mills administration announced on Friday that it has submitted a request for a second allotment.

Three months into this a year, the vast majority of Maine’s public schools have managed to reopen classrooms, and health officials say they remain relatively safe — but as COVID-19 case numbers rise in Maine, schools are now facing shortages of teachers and other staff.