MAINE, USA — As the fourth anniversary of the start of the global coronavirus pandemic arrives, Mainers are reflecting on both its impacts and the lives lost due to COVID-19.
Since the start of the pandemic, Maine has seen more than 3,300 deaths due to the virus.
"I remember calling back home to my boss and saying, 'This is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing the plexiglass, I'm seeing the gloves,'" Bryan MacDonald of North Waterboro recalled about when COVID cases first started to change the world around him.
He and his brother Michael lost their father, Joseph MacDonald, due to COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic. According to MacDonald's obituary, he was the eighth death Maine saw due to the virus.
"I personally feel like it wasn't his time to go, you know? He was in his seventies," Bryan MacDonald said. "The sense of loss is still there, you never really get over it."
To help cope, he joined a Facebook group dedicated to remembering the lives of Mainers who died during the pandemic, a group that is still active today. Four years later, Joseph MacDonald is still being remembered for his service during the Vietnam War, his leadership and perseverance, and the mark he left in his community.
"The high school games in Biddeford; he was a ticket collector so he spent a lot of time in the community," Bryan MacDonald said.
From family and friends grieving the loss of loved ones to business owners fighting to keep their doors open, the impacts of the pandemic were felt in many different ways.
"In 2019, we were helping about fifteen hundred clients a year. And in 2020, we helped three thousand; double the amount of clients walking through our doors," Associate State Director of Operations Jennifer Boutin of the Maine Small Business Development Centers said.
Although many small businesses took a hit during the lockdown, despite the uncertainty, Boutin said many entrepreneurs also blossomed into businesses doing well today.
"The start-up bloom in alignment with the pandemic—and that bloom is still kind of going—it blows my mind," Boutin said.
