AUGUSTA, Maine — One day before Maine's state of civil emergency is set to end, Dr. Nirav Shah will give his final regularly scheduled public briefing Wednesday afternoon.
The director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control & Prevention answered questions Tuesday afternoon on MainePublic's "Maine Calling," saying Mainers are now "among the most vaccinated people on the planet" and that he is optimistic about a relatively normal upcoming school year.
"We're in a world right now where our relationship with COVID is fundamentally different from what it was a year ago," Shah said. "A year ago, COVID, for the most part, controlled us, but those tables have turned now, and that is in large measure because of the vaccine, even for kids that can't be vaccinated."
However, he said, "We are not slowing down. Though the state of emergency may be coming to an end, the work at the Maine CDC and across state government is going to keep going. It's not as if on July 1st we're unfurling the banner and all going to the beach or anything."
Until the World Health Organization and federal officials determine the official pandemic has ended, COVID continues, he said, although, "certainly not with the ferocity and intensity with which it continued or unfolded a year ago. Thankfully, we here in Maine have done an astoundingly good job in getting ourselves vaccinated, which puts us in a much different position than other countries and even other states in the United States."
Shah said that for those who are vaccinated, life can resume in large part as it did prior to the pandemic.
He continued to advocate for people to be vaccinated and said ending the civil state of emergency is possible because so many Mainers have done so.
"As with so many other vaccine-preventable diseases, whether it's measles or chickenpox, we've done such a great job in Maine of getting vaccinated and driving case counts down that those who are on the fence look around and say, 'Well, gosh the case numbers are so low, it's not clear to me the vaccine calculus comes out in favor of getting a vaccine.' That is an unfortunate irony of just how well we have done at getting folks vaccinated in Maine."
Shah encouraged those who have so far chosen not to be vaccinated to consider the risk to others in their lives including elderly parents or young children.
The high vaccine rate has helped prepare the state for a potential surge in the fall, Shah said. The federal government is charged with deciding, probably in mid- to late-summer, whether a booster or revaccination will be necessary, but Shah said state officials are planning for that to be the case, although he said it wouldn't be at the "emergency cadence" of the initial vaccine rollout.
COVID and children
Shah said he expects a vaccine for children 11 and younger to be available early- to mid-fall, perhaps first for ages six to 11, and later for younger children.
Precautions taken for children throughout the pandemic should continue, he said: wearing masks when in settings with unmasked or unvaccinated people, and spending as much time outside as possible.
"Our rates of COVID in Maine such that we're not in the same position as other countries," he said. "Parents need not keep their kids inside all summer because we also have to keep in mind that an essential part of kids' mental and physical health is being a kid, is being outside, playing, learning those social skills, exercising and staying healthy ... there is a balance here ... there is a way to achieve a semblance of childhood this summer and simultaneously keep kids safe."
He said families should make individual decisions about what is safe for their children.
Given the expected vaccine approval for children and the vaccination level in the state, he said he's "optimistic" about what school will look like for students in the fall.
"The likelihood of kids being in the classroom without needing to wear masks, with all of their friends there, is looking brighter than it has at any point during COVID," he said. "That could change. Anything can still change. But based on where we are today, my assumption and my hope is that kids will have a largely normal school season this upcoming year.”
Despite that optimism, though, Shah said people are only now beginning to realize the trauma experienced by some people as the result of the pandemic.
"As we come out of the grief of COVID, we will start encountering the trauma of COVID," he said. "We need to recognize and take that trauma-informed view and recognize that everyone is going to be coming out of COVID having had completely different experiences."
Shah's final regularly scheduled media briefing will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday.