by Ruth Leubecker

Often sequestered and lonely in 2020, Mainers, like the rest of a beleaguered nation, have been pervasively affected by the insidious presence of the coronavirus.

In the beginning -- way back last March -- if most thought about it at all, they considered possibly a month or two, and then it would all be over. Now, as another March fast approaches, hundreds of thousands have died nationally, and Maine, slow to wrack up those numbers, now has 28,000-plus cases and nearly 500 dead.