Newsweek – COVID Vaccinations for Maine’s Remote Island Residents Arrive Via 74-Foot Boat
Newsweek – U.S.
COVID Vaccinations for Maine’s Remote Island Residents Arrive Via 74-Foot Boat
BY JENNI FINK ON 3/9/21 AT 1:38 PM EST
A team of about 10 people is using a 74-foot vessel and their 100-plus years of relationship building to vaccinate some of Maine’s most remote island residents.
Islands off the coast of Maine swell with tourists in the summer, but the number of full-time residents can range from as little as a few dozen people to about 300. Traveling to the mainland to see a doctor can be a days-long trek, so the nonprofit Maine Seacoast Mission is setting up mobile vaccination clinics to bridge the health care gap.
“The weather on the ocean right now is at its roughest, so from that perspective it’s a little bit of a challenge,” John Zavodny, president of the nonprofit, told Newsweek. “[But] we have been there for these islands through generations of hope, success and struggle, and this isn’t even our first pandemic. We’re going to just keep going until everyone is vaccinated.”