This week, Maine achieved another vaccination milestone: more than 50 percent of all eligible Maine people have received a COVID-19 booster shot, making us the fourth state in the nation to do so.
Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.
At the time of this recording the U.S. CDC reports that 50.2 percent of fully vaccinated people in Maine – that’s 519,681 people – have received a booster shot. Only Vermont, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have higher booster vaccination rates.
I am proud to say that since the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, Maine has been a leader in vaccination and we remain one of the most vaccinated states in the nation.
But it is not all good news. This milestone comes at a time when Maine is confronting near record high COVID-19 hospitalizations.
I sometimes hear people ask: how can we be such a highly vaccinated state and still have our hospitals near the brink of disaster? The answer is these hospitalizations are being driven primarily by people who are not vaccinated.
In fact, when you look back to the first day that Maine people could be fully vaccinated, and then you look at the hospitalizations from then on – more than 75 percent of the people who were admitted to hospitals were not fully vaccinated.
When you look at the people who were admitted to the intensive care units, that percentage is even higher.
This is something I saw firsthand just recently.
When I visited the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Maine Medical Center, all but one of the people I saw in that unit, was unvaccinated. As I looked around at the suffering people fighting to breathe, doctors and nurses told me that 40 percent of those people were expected to die.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Across Maine right now, more than one hundred people are fighting for their breath in those critical care units, fighting for their lives.
Many of these folks are our friends and neighbors who will needlessly die a painful death because they decided to take a chance, not get vaccinated and got deathly sick.
Those deaths are all preventable.
Vaccines are safe and effective. And new, reputable studies have concluded that getting a booster shot reduces the risk of death by 90 percent, on top of the protection provided by the first two doses of vaccine.
This growing body of research is bolstered by real world evidence right here in Maine that demonstrates the power of the vaccine.
Look, our heroic health care workers are exhausted. They are all pleading with Maine people to get vaccinated. I urge you: please listen to them. Heed their advice.
Getting your shot, whether it is your first or your third, is the best way to save your life, to protect our health care system, to save others, and to lift the extraordinary burden our health care workers are carrying on right now because of unvaccinated patients.
To the more than half of eligible Maine people who have received a booster, I say thank you for stepping up to get the highest level of protection for yourself, your loved ones, your communities, and our health care system.
To everyone else, the message is clear: with Omicron spreading and our health care system under such great stress, now is the time to get your shot. Do not delay. If you are eligible, get your shot today.
This is Governor Janet Mills. Please stay safe and thank you for listening.