{"id":19365,"date":"2020-09-30T12:55:26","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T16:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=19365"},"modified":"2020-09-30T15:42:26","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T19:42:26","slug":"stand-by-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/stand-by-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Stand by ME"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 450px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23d2d2d2&amp;d=oct20_flipbook&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=28&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">He has charmed and soothed Mainers during his COVID-19 briefings\u2014and not only by reciting popular lyrics.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>By Sofia Voltin<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">We all want to know what lies around the corner, and we turn to <strong>Dr. Nirav Shah<\/strong> for answers and updates. (So does Jake Tapper on CNN.) The Maine CDC director lies at the center of our coronavirus fight. He\u2019s been praised for his clear communication style and has a knack for riffing music lyrics into catchy reminders and notes of encouragement. In March, he quoted Coldplay. In September, he dropped some Rick Astley. \u201c<em>The bottom line here is that Maine CDC contact tracers are never gonna give you up, they\u2019re never gonna let you down, they\u2019re never gonna run around and desert you. Maine CDC contact tracers are never gonna make you cry, they\u2019re never gonna say goodbye, and they\u2019re never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.<\/em>\u201d<br \/>\nHe came to Maine after working for four years as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. In late 2018, two Illinois U.S. Senators called for his resignation due to a controversy over his handling of an outbreak of Legionnaires\u2019 disease that sickened 74 people and killed a dozen. He joined the Maine CDC in May 2019, taking charge of an agency that was severely understaffed. Now, the Fans of Dr. Nirav Shah Facebook group has 34K members. \u201cIn Shah We Trust\u201d lit up an electronic road sign in Topsham on Route 196, and the catchy phrase has been printed on shirts, stickers, mugs, and tote bags to raise funds for the Good Shepherd Food Bank.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">Read the full story in the digital magazine above.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Nirav Shah lies at the center of our coronavirus fight.<br \/>\nBy Sofia Voltin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,955],"tags":[1021,1022,1153,1154],"class_list":["post-19365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-most-intriguing-mainers","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-dr-nirav-shah","tag-maine-cdc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19391,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365\/revisions\/19391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}