This small Maine island community rallied together to keep the coronavirus at bay
CLIFF ISLAND, Maine — In different times, a taxi met visitors at the wharf to take them to any destination on this H-shaped island’s dirt roads.
Few visitors come now. But the taxi is still parked up the road with its back window emblazoned with a simple message in bold yellow lettering: “Sorry! No Taxi Service Due to COVID-19.”
It is one of the most immediately visible ways that life has changed on the island in Casco Bay that is part of Maine’s largest city, but is a remote last stop on the ferry from the mainland. Cliff Island has yet to see a confirmed case of the coronavirus in nearly a year since the pandemic arrived in Maine, infecting more than 45,000 statewide and more than 3,700 in Portland.
That is a distinction few others can boast and the Cliff Island’s roughly 45 year-round residents want to keep. North Haven, which briefly attempted to ban outside visitors when the pandemic began, saw 15 cases in a week last fall. Swans Island, the lobstering village off the Blue Hill Peninsula with a population of about 320, saw its first confirmed case just a few weeks ago.
Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2021/03/07/news/portland/this-small-maine-island-community-rallied-together-to-keep-the-coronavirus-at-bay/