A look at COVID-19 news from around New England:
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MAINE
A Maine hospital that serves the area that includes Acadia National Park says multiple out-of-state visitors have sought advice after learning that the COVID-19 tests they took before leaving their home states came back positive.
Bar Harbor’s Mount Desert Island Hospital said Friday on its Facebook page that it was encouraging those 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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MASSACHUSETTS
A free, no-appointment-or-referral-necessary testing clinic is going to be held Monday in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury.
The tests at the Prince Hall Grand Lodge are part of a Boston-wide effort to provide stepped up testing and contact tracing to contain the spread of the virus.
Organizers say that as Boston reopens and college students return to campuses, these efforts are vital to health.
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Portsmouth Historical Society will exhibit a quilt made from more than 50 squares created by New Hampshire families during the pandemic.
Until the quilt is ready in September, individual squares will be on display in the gallery.
The response to the project has been so great that the historical society is considering creating a second quilt.
“Threads: A Community Quilt for 2020” opens Friday.
Historical Society Executive Director Brian LeMay said that in the spring they began to think about what would be most meaningful artifacts to exhibit. They chose quilts.
“Over the years, we’ve acquired many historical quilts, and quilts have come to be recognized as both an important medium of fine art and a distinctively American art form,” he said in a statement.
A number of other historical quilts will also be displayed.
All guests, volunteers and staff members will be required to wear masks at all times and observe social distancing rules.
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CONNECTICUT
The Northeast Grand Prix auto race at Lime Rock Park in the Lakeville section of Salisbury has been moved to Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina because of the coronavirus.
The race was originally scheduled for its traditional July date, but was postponed to September and recently moved to Charlotte on Oct. 9 and 10 as part of a NASCAR event weekend, the International Motor Sport Association announced Friday.
The association said it has had to revise its schedule because of state and local coronavirus guidelines. Fans who bought tickets to the Lime Rock Park event will be notified of their options in the coming days, the association said.
Lime Rock Park President Skip Barber said Saturday that the track still plans to hold its annual Historic Festival from Sept. 3 to 7 and the season-ending Trans Am SpeedTour on Oct. 16 to 18.
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VERMONT
The Vermont Department of Corrections says early test results have identified 85 Vermont inmates who have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi.
The Department of Corrections ordered testing of all Vermont inmates held at the facility on July 30. At this time, tests are still pending. Numbers are preliminary and may change.
Testing was ordered after six inmates returning from Mississippi tested positive upon arrival at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland on July 28.
Interim Corrections Commissioner Jim Baker said in a Sunday statement that teams from the department and its medical provider are working to ensure the safety of Vermont inmates being held in Mississippi.
“Testing is only one part of the response to COVID-19 inside facilities," Baker said. “You also need a clear, detailed plan for every operational aspect, from how to get laundry done to how and when to conduct follow-up testing to proper (person protective equipment for inmates and staff to communicating with local hospitals.”
Vermont houses a number of inmates at out-of-state prisons because there is not enough capacity in the state's prisons.
Currently there are 219 Vermont inmates at the Tallahatchie facility.
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TOWN MEETING
The town of Brattleboro is getting ready to host its annual representative town meeting online after the March in-person event was cancelled. The select board asked town staff this week to prepare a notification to hold a virtual meeting Sept. 12 and 13, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.
Town officials had considered various options before deciding to do it remotely. One idea was to have small groups of Town Meeting members in different locations and connected via Brattleboro Community Television. But the proposal would have required a lot of work and could create larger gatherings than people were comfortable with, said Town Manager Peter Elwell.
Another option was to have an informational meeting to discuss the articles and then vote via secret ballot another day.
A survey of 133 of the 138 Town Meeting members found that 35% opposed the small groups meeting and 25% were against the ballot, Elwell said. With the virtual meeting, Elwell said 16 Town Meeting members will need some technical assistance, based on the survey results.