When COVID came to town: Rural Maine reckons with a deadly visitor
Throughout the summer and early fall, the lakeside town of Naples didn t see many cases of COVID-19. Things changed rapidly in November and what s happening there now is a microcosm of how the pandemic has evolved to its current state.
Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
NAPLES Della Blais said she’s used to seeing this lakeside community she and her family call home turn quiet each year once the out-of-town visitors leave.
But never like this.
“Everything is shut down, it seems like,” the 43-year-old mother of six said last week while walking the Causeway, the well-known stretch of Route 302 that separates Long Lake and Brandy Pond and is lined with restaurants and shops. “Even when (the pandemic) first started, it wasn’t as bad as it is now.”