Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles sharply criticized former Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah’s (D) handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing him of using emergency powers to lock down the state and impose harsh mandates that he said damaged education, health care, and families.
Charles’ broadside coincided with Shah’s announcement on Monday that he seeking the Democrat Party’s nomination to run for Governor of Maine.
In a statement released by his campaign on social media, Charles said Shah, whom he described as “the chief architect and enforcer” of Gov. Janet Mills’ pandemic response, kept Maine “paralyzed long after the science said otherwise.” He blamed Shah for school closures, learning loss, and a youth mental health crisis.
Charles said that by July 2020, all Maine counties were rated “green for reopening”, but schools remained largely closed and strict masking mandates stayed in place. He accused Shah and Mills of locking down the state for months, forcing students into hybrid learning, isolating seniors, and imposing vaccine mandates on health care workers without exemptions.
Charles vowed that, if elected, he would “never let anyone wield emergency powers like a weapon against the people of Maine again,” pledging to shift power “back into the hands of Mainers.”
Shah, a former director of the Maine CDC, was promoted by the Biden administration to be a national-level public health official and now teaches at Colby College. He has not yet responded to Charles’ statement.
