10 ways Janet Mills failed on COVID

Janet Mills says she did a good job handling COVID. She’s wrong.

“No matter how you look at it, Janet Mills has failed Mainers during the pandemic’s leadership test,” Maine GOP executive director Jason Savage said. “She failed on the economic front, the education front, the health care front, and on the simple competence front. It’s not an accident that so many Mainers are ready for change – Mills was given the opportunity to lead, and she instead locked the state down, listened to the teacher unions over parents, and made bad decision after bad decision.”

Here are ten pieces of evidence that prove Janet Mills did a bad job handling COVID:

1. Mainers aren’t happy: Mills’ approval rating has fallen 25 percentage points during COVID and now sits well underwater at 42 percent, according to one recent poll.

2. Even Dems disagree with her: Members of Mills’ own party have broken with her COVID policies repeatedly, including party activists at a Hancock County Democrat meeting, pundits like Jeremy Fischer, and legislators like Sen. Ned ClaxtonChloe Maxmin, Craig Hickman, and Dave Miramant.

3. Her mandates killed jobs and hurt health care: Mills’ vaccine mandate led to hundreds of workers leaving nursing homes, hospitals, and group homes during a staffing crisis. It also led to less access to health care for Mainers, including at hospitals like Central Maine Medical Center.

4. The unemployment system collapsed on her watch: Mills’ administration oversaw a massive collapse of Maine’s unemployment system during COVID, and then her administration refused to answer the Legislature’s questions about the problem.

5. Maine saw a record number of drug overdose deaths last year. Addiction experts agree that lockdowns exacerbated drug use.

6. Her COVID-era economic policies have deeply hurt Mainers’ wallets. Health insurance costs are up $600 per person per year due to Mills’ policies — according to her own administration. Electricity costs have skyrocketed in Maine due to Mills’ energy policies — according to her own political appointees.

7. Horror at nursing/group homes: Maine had the highest nursing home COVID death rate of any US state over a period last year. In addition, many nursing and group homes have closed or limited services due to Mills’ vaccine mandate exacerbating staffing issues.

8. Her school lockdowns hurt kids. Mills locked down the state’s schools. It’s widely accepted that the teacher union-driven school lockdowns hurt kids’ education and mental health.

9. Is the Mills administration lying, or incompetent? Mills’ administration told the press that there were no COVID-positive health care workers in Maine hospitals…while news reporters verified that there were COVID-positive workers in Maine hospitals.

10: Speaking of incompetent: The Mills administration’s COVID testing backlog was so big that our case count was artificially low, which means Maine had less access to lifesaving medication from federal government allocations than it should have had.

And here’s a truly infuriating bonus:

11. Mills unilaterally delayed desperately needed dental care longer than almost every other state:15 of 16 counties have been designated as dental health care shortage areas, but Maine was one of the last states in the country to allow dental clinics to reopen.

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