AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Maine is allowing all teachers to be vaccinated as soon as possible but some are being left out in border towns in southern Maine.
Fryeburg Academy English teacher Melanie Allen was told she’s not eligible for a vaccination in Maine because she lives a few miles across the border in Chatham, New Hampshire.
She then learned she was left out of New Hampshire’s vaccine eligibility for teachers, as well, because she does not work at a school in the Granite State.
Allen told WMTW-TV more than a dozen of her colleagues at Fryeburg Academy had run into the same roadblock while trying to register.
“On one hand, I feel like it’s Maine’s responsibility to vaccinate me because I work in a Maine school,” she said. “But it really doesn’t matter. I would just like to be offered the same benefit that my colleagues are being offered.”
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THE NUMBERS
Maine’s COVID-19 infection rate continues to be relatively stable with a 14-day positivity rate of 177.
The Maine Center for Disease Control reported 174 infections along with one death on Monday. The total number of infections reported in Maine were 47,199 with 725 deaths since the pandemic began.
The Maine CDC says more than 508,000 coronavirus vaccinations have been administered in the state. Of those, more than 187,000 are fully vaccinated, the Maine CDC said.
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EMERGENCY ORDER
Monday marked one year since Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, declared a state of civil emergency because of the coronavirus. The order expires on March 18, though Mills has extended it many times.
The state has said the declaration allows Mills to “deploy all available tools to respond to and contain COVID-19.” That has included steps such as a statewide mask mandate and restrictions on businesses.
The Maine Senate last week turned back a Republican-led effort to end the emergency powers. The Maine Policy Institute, which advocates for economic freedom and free market principles, called on Mills to end the order on Monday. She has said recently that the emergency order is critical to allow the state to efficiently combat the virus.
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DISTANCING IN SCHOOLS
Some Maine schools are allowing students to attend in-classroom learning five days a week, but others are continuing with hybrid learning as they struggle to find a way to keep students socially distanced.
Relaxed distancing rules require students to be 3 feet (1 meter) apart from each other and adults to be 6 feet (2 meters) from students and colleagues. Cafeterias, in particular, present a challenge to meeting that requirement.
“Just because everyone is vaccinated we can’t just be rushing back and have the expectation that those spacing requirements are going to change overnight,” said Steve Bailey, executive director of the Maine School Management Association and Maine School Boards Association.
Cumberland-based SAD 51 has struggled with higher infection rates than nearby school districts, and is using 3 feet of distance between students in most classes. Keeping kids in class five days a week would require further loosening distancing guidelines, Superintendent Jeff Porter said
“That’s the line in the sand. You can’t cross it if it’s there. There’s just no way to get around it,” he said.
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