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Lewiston-Auburn leads the entire country in daily average of new COVID-19 cases
The Lewiston-Auburn metropolitan ranks third in the country for the highest daily average of new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks, according to data published by The New York Times.
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Rodney Guptill gets his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday from paramedic Dan Brown at the Turner Fire Department clinic. Guptill is the former chief of the Turner Fire Department and had to postpone his first dose so he could undergo surgery.
Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
LEWISTON – Only two other metropolitan areas in the entire country have a higher daily average of new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks than Lewiston-Auburn.
City officials from Lewiston did not return a request for comment.
William Wallace, a lecturer at Bates College in Lewiston and a member of the Lewiston Area Public Health Committee, said he believes the fact that vaccination eligibility for Mainers under 50 only opened this month and community spread through social events are driving new cases.
“I think it’s probably those gatherings that are taking place on weekends or evenings where groups of people get together, not from their own family pod, and they’re spreading and contracting the virus,” Wallace said.
At Bates College, three unsanctioned social gatherings preceded a large outbreak and a two-week campus shutdown. The latest round of testing found only one new case, a staff member. There are two active cases among students and two among staff, including the new positive case, according to the college’s dashboard. A total of 124 members of the Bates community have recovered from COVID-19.