The holiday season is a time of joy and happiness and hope. And these are the things I wish for all of you.

This weekend, many families across the State will gather with a few loved ones, friends or neighbors. But sadly, some families won’t be so lucky. Hundreds of people right now are fighting for their lives in hospitals across our state.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

Fighting right alongside those Mainers in the hospital are our heroic health care workers. Health care workers are the heart of our response to COVID-19. They’ve shown up on the frontlines for almost two years now to save the lives of Maine people, all the while sometimes enduring risks to their own health and the added pressure and stress of the job. While their work is meaningful beyond words, I want them to know how grateful we all are for everything they are doing.

So to all health care workers across the State of Maine – whether you are in a hospital right now, at a doctor’s office, in a nursing or assisted living facility, a vaccination site, in a counselor’s or therapist’s office, in someone’s home, or in the back of an ambulance, please know, from the bottom of my heart, that Maine is grateful for your service. You are the heart of Maine.

I also ask all Maine people this holiday season to join with me in thanking our health care workers, those who are bearing the greatest burden of this current COVID-19 surge.

Really, the best way to thank our health care workers, the best way to help relieve the burden on their shoulders is to heed their advice: get vaccinated. Get vaccinated so you can stay out of the hospital and so we can make room for others who are patiently waiting for medical care not related to COVID. Please. 

You remember, it was only through vaccination that we got through the ravages of polio years ago. It was only through mass vaccination that we rid the world of the deadly smallpox virus. And it is only through vaccination that we will rid ourselves of the coronavirus.

In addition to getting vaccinated, please keep your holiday gatherings small and safe, get tested before getting together if you can, and take precautions to keep yourselves and friends and loved ones healthy. This is just commonsense steps like wearing a mask, washing hands, and staying socially distant to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

So from my family to yours, I wish you a holiday of hope, happiness and good health. Please stay safe this holiday season. And please, thank a health care worker – those people who are spending these holidays taking care of our most vulnerable citizens.

And if you are so inclined, please say a prayer for the sixty or so people right now who are breathing only with the help of a machine in our intensive care units. And say a prayer for the ten children who have been hospitalized just this month with COVID, eight of them in the hospital right now as I speak. Four of these youngsters are fighting for dear life in pediatric critical care units. Most of those kids were just too young to get vaccinated. They are depending on you.

If you’re lucky enough to be eligible for this lifesaving medicine, please think of them. Please get vaccinated. The life you save may be your own. Or it may be a small child’s.

Your neighbors and your neighbors’ children are counting on you to keep them safe.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Please have a safe and happy holiday and thank you for listening.

This last month has seen a sustained surge of COVID-19 in Maine, driven by the Delta variant still, and made much worse by the number of people still not vaccinated.

With more people gathering indoors this holiday season in crowded places, risking more illness and hospitalizations, our health care system is just about at full capacity.

This is very similar to what’s happening in our neighboring states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont as well.

To help with hospital capacity, I activated the Maine National Guard and deployed them around the state to help our hospitals and nursing homes treat people with COVID-19 and other serious medical conditions.

I also asked the federal government to send skilled health care professionals to Maine to support our overwhelmed health care workers.  

The federal government quickly said yes.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

One federal COVID-19 response team has already arrived in Maine. Starting last weekend, and running through Thursday, December 23rd, fifteen Federal clinicians, physicians, nurses, and paramedics from the U.S. Department of Health federal National Disaster Medical System, are supplementing existing staff at Maine Medical Center.

We’ve asked for more support as well. And more federal support may also be heading to Maine in the coming weeks and days. 

My Administration has also applied for federal ambulances and ambulance crews to transport patients among eight Maine hospitals and make sure they get to the facility that best meets their health care needs.

I am hoping that the combination of Federal help and National Guard support, along with additional actions by my Administration, will alleviate some of the strain on our health care system and will ensure critical care for those who need it, but hey we need your help too.

As I mentioned, most of the people in the hospital in Maine with COVID-19, particularly those in critical care, are not vaccinated. Ultimately, the best and most effective way to relieve the burden on our heroic health care workers is to heed their advice: get vaccinated.

To find a vaccination site visit maine.gov/covid19/vaccines or call the Community Vaccination Line at 1-888-445-4111.

I join Governor Sununu of New Hampshire, Governor Baker of Massachusetts, Governor Scott of Vermont in saying this virus doesn’t care who you are, where you are from, whether you are young or old, rich or poor, Democrat, Green or Republican, it’s a threat to all of us. 

It’s so important to get vaccinated, and to take precautions to protect all of us. That means also mask wearing and hand washing. And if you’re thinking of having a holiday gathering, it also means reconsidering that, keep it small, keep it safe. 

This holiday season give the gift of health. Get vaccinated. The life you save may be your own. Or it may be a small child who cannot get vaccinated herself, but who depends on everyone else in her community to get vaccinated to keep her safe. 

There’s simply no downside. 

Get vaccinated as soon as possible. It’s free, it’s effective, and it’s important.

We want you around next year for the holiday season too.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

December is a great time for gatherings, it’s a season of joy. A season of hope. A season of happiness. At this time of year, people should be celebrating the holidays, at home with their loved ones, or out shopping for a gift for the children or grandchildren.

Sadly, however, while many of us are planning to celebrate the holidays, some are not so lucky. Hundreds right now in Maine are fighting for their lives in hospitals and homes across the state.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills.

More than a hundred people have died just in the last sixty days, taken down by the deadly Covid virus, mostly the virulent Delta variant. Most of those individuals just didn’t take the simple step of vaccinating against the disease that took their lives.

Others across the state are waiting for health care procedures so that they might live without pain, or so that they might achieve mobility, or so that they might find that a tumor is benign, or so that they can get back to work and enjoy regular family and daily life activities.

But our hospitals are being stretched thin. Health care is jeopardized for those who need it. And our health care workers, heroic as they are, are more exhausted than ever, taking care of people young and old in critical care, including pediatric critical care.

We are at a tipping point.

That is why this week I activated additional members of the Maine National Guard. In consultation with our health care systems, I am deploying them across Maine, on state orders, to expand our hospitals’ capacity to treat people with COVID-19 and other serious medical conditions.

They will be helping in certain nursing facilities to allow hospitals to discharge patients to those facilities. And they will be helping with monoclonal antibody treatments which, if administered early enough, can keep COVID patients out of hospitals.

In addition to activating more members of the Guard, I have also requested Federal COVID-19 Surge Response Teams on behalf of Maine Medical Center in Portland and Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston under the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Winter Response Plan. This is in consultation with those hospitals.

If approved, teams of Federal clinicians, including physicians, nurses, and certified nursing assistants, will supplement existing staff and members of the Maine National Guard to provide care for those with COVID-19.

Taken together, we hope these actions will alleviate the strain on our health care system and provide better care to those who are ill. But we’re not taking anything for granted, especially with the imminent arrival of the Omicron variant, against which the current vaccines appear to be effective. And you shouldn’t take anything for granted either.

Next week, members of the Maine National Guard will leave their families and homes and communities to join our heroic health care workers in stepping up to meet the challenge.

What’s sad is that we are having to do this during this usually joyful time of year. December, the season of hope.

I hope that Maine people will step up to the challenge, too.

Get vaccinated, please.

And whether you’re vaccinated or not, wear a mask in indoor public settings. What’s the harm? There’s no downside.

If you run a store or business, make sure your staff are wearing masks to protect the public and themselves.

Get vaccinated.

Do it for your health, for the health of an elderly relative, for the health of a small child.

Do it for our health care workers, who bear the greatest burden of all. Do it for our National Guard who are joining them.

Why take chances? No matter where you live.

Getting vaccinated is no different than putting on a scarf in cold weather. Or wearing a hard hat in a construction zone. Or safety goggles when you’re welding.

It’s just common sense. And practical safety.

This holiday season, give the gift of health.

Get vaccinated today.

The life you save may be a small child’s.

The life you save may be your own.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.