Much has changed in the more than sixteen weeks since our lives were immeasurably altered in response to the pandemic. Surely 2020 will go down as one, unlike any other, that we have had the misfortune to have lived through. And it will not end any time soon. As was reported earlier this week, the Governor has extended the state of emergency deep into August.

We have all made sacrifices. We have all changed our habits a bit. We have reacted to the onslaught of news and predictions. Numbers and totals. Only recently have some, myself included, really started to question what those numbers mean.

For several months it was hard to get information from the Maine CDC. After weeks and months of requests by some news outlets the state expanded the reporting of information on the virus. Only recently has the state released a comprehensive list of towns and cities in Maine and the numbers of positive Covid cases in each. That information has been an eye opener.

Also of note, the Treasury Department this week released the names of businesses that have received money tied to the Paycheck Protection Program loans. This information helped show just how many jobs were saved or retained with this program. It also showed the staggering amount of money that was loaned out. In some cases, in many cases, those loans will end up being forgiven after they were guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

In this part of Maine, according to the SBA, there were more than 10,000 jobs that could have been lost had it not been for the PPP loans. To save those jobs, 232 businesses have applied for the program. The total dollar amount for those loans comes to between $71,250,000 and $171,200,000. There is a hundred million range because the SBA did not report what each business received to the penny. Instead they used round numbers. Very round numbers.

When you look at the overall numbers of the state they are astronomical. Employers in the state held onto 135,493 workers. The loans to retain those workers were from $1,029,100,000 to $2,476,850,000. Yes, you read that right. That is between one and two billion dollars. And that is just for little ol’ Maine.

These businesses were as varied as we are. There were restaurants and beer companies. There were car dealers and landscapers. Caterers and consultants. Every industry was seemingly represented. Thankfully those jobs were saved and will continue to be saved until the end of this pandemic is in sight.

While there needed to be a program like the PPP early on in the pandemic when unemployment was raging, is it necessary still? Better still, are the circumstances such in Maine that the state of emergency could be ended? Is Covid-19 as pervasive as some would believe?

I mentioned the data that the Maine CDC has been releasing lately. That has been a treasure trove of information and graphs that detail just what the state has seen.

I looked at information for the general readership area of this paper. The state noted in their data that there are 101,974 residents in this area. Brunswick was the largest town with 21,275 residents. Bailey Island was the smallest with 305 residents.

For those nearly 102,000 residents the state has tallied between 92 and 132 cases of Covid. Again, the state likes to use some fuzzy math. Those numbers do not represent cases where a person died from Covid or with Covid. Those are individuals who were diagnosed and tested with the illness.

Brunswick again leads the pack with 20 confirmed cases. Freeport comes in with 16. The numbers drop off with many towns registering between 1 and 5 cases. Clearly the state is unsure just how many residents are positive in some of the towns and cities in our area.

Considering that we have been living under these conditions for more than 16 weeks that means that the residents of this area are seeing an average of only 5 to 8 cases per week. 5 to 8 cases out of more than 100,000 people. And again, this is not deaths from Covid, this is simply people who have been diagnosed. Most have recovered just fine.

I am by no means saying that each death from this illness is not a tragedy for the person and their family. Maine has seen just over 100 Covid related deaths. However, the area and the state have been effectively shut down for much of the last four months for numbers that are very small.

Are there certain ages and groups that are more susceptible to getting sick? It would seem that there are, but it is time that we as a state work smarter to contain this illness instead of throwing a wet blanket over the entire population.

The people of Maine have paid a heavy price. The employers have paid a heavy price. It is time to release the state of emergency and begin the long road back to normal.

Jonathan Crimmins can be contacted at j_crimmins@hotmail.com

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