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Maine hospital warns that COVID-19 may be circulating undetected in tourist hot spot

Maine hospital warns that COVID-19 may be circulating undetected in tourist hot spot

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BAR HARBOR (WGME)— Multiple out-of-state Acadia visitors are reported to have been seeking advice after learning that the COVID-19 tests they took back home had come back positive.

Bar Harbor’s Mount Desert Island Hospital has encouraged these people to come forward.

The Portland Press Herald reports the development appears to stem from long delays in processing tests in much of the country.

“Without quicker testing, these sorts of problems are likely to become more widespread,” said Jeremy Youde, who studies the intersection of government and public health at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

“That’s quite a dilemma,” said Dr. Peter Millard, an epidemiologist who is now medical director at Seaport Community Health Care in Belfast. “When somebody has a positive test in, say, Georgia, there is no way that the people in Georgia would know that person went to Maine, so it’s not like they can forward it to officials here.”

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