PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 22, 2021
Lyme cases declined nearly 50 percent in Maine last year, from 2,167 cases in 2019 – a record high – to 1,115 in 2020, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention with the decline likely driven by dry weather last summer and the reluctance of people to seek medical care during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Griffin Dill, integrated pest management professional at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s “tick lab,” said deer ticks – the arachnids that transmit Lyme disease – are already emerging with the warmer weather and it seems unlikely that reduced Lyme cases in 2020 means that tick populations are down.