PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Maine could establish a grant program to help the state tourism and hospitality industries that have suffered from the coronavirus pandemic.

Kennebunk’s Democratic Senator Joe Rafferty has tabled a proposal to allow tourism and hospitality businesses that have lost revenue due to the pandemic to apply for the grants. Rafferty said the grants were funded by federal funds Maine received earlier this year.

Rafferty said the state’s tourism industry is “a big part of our economy, but an even bigger part of who we are”. He quoted the license plates in the state of Vacationland.

One in six jobs in Maine is related to the tourism industry, Rafferty said. Industry accounts for more than 10% of the state’s economic output at $ 6.2 billion a year, he said.

The proposal will be voted on in the Legislative Committee.

In other pandemic news in Maine:

The number of daily positive coronavirus cases in Maine continued to rise.

The seven-day moving average of daily new cases in Maine has increased for the past two weeks from 315.43 new cases per day on April 7th to 416.29 new cases per day on April 21st. The seven-day moving average of daily deaths in Maine has risen for the past two weeks, rising from 0.57 deaths per day on April 7th to 1.57 deaths per day on April 21st.

The AP uses data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Technology to measure outbreak cases and deaths in the United States.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that more than 59,000 positive cases of the coronavirus have been reported in the state since the pandemic began. Maine has had 771 deaths.

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