More cases of coronavirus have been linked to a marriage in Maine, officials said, detailing how the virus spread to a nursing home and a prison complex more than 200 miles away.
According to a Wednesday update by Robert Long, spokesman for Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 85 cases linked to a wedding reception held Aug. 7 at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket.
Millinocket Regional Hospital said one female inmate admitted to the incident died early Friday afternoon.
Long said 32 of the total 85 infections were primary cases, as people who attended the wedding. Meanwhile, there were 33 secondary cases and 20 were tertiary cases (people who had contact with attendees respectively as secondary cases).
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In a streamed press release on Tuesday, Drs. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, described the outbreak as a “series of concentric rings … all away from this one August 7 event.”
One of those rings is an outbreak at the Maplecrest Rehabilitation & Living Center in Madison, Maine, he said, where there are six cases, totaling 85 cases.
Shah said the coronavirus outbreak reached the nursing home because a marriage guest infected her parent, and the parent infected another of her children who works at the nursing home.
Within two-and-a-half weeks, four residents and another staff member were infected, Shah said.
Apart from the nursing home, the outbreak of the marriage virus also spread to a prison in the province about 230 kilometers away.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, detailed how the virus’s spread to the York County Jail complex. (Photo by Getty Images)
“This morning, our disease detectives identified a connection between the wedding / reception in Millinocket and the Jail complex of York County,” Shah said Tuesday during the streaming press briefing.
He said the evolving situation had a total of 18 cases, seven of which were among prisoners, and nine were among staff members. Two more staff members were infected working with the provincial government in that complex.
Shah declared that a staff member in prison attended the wedding, and was also “among the first confirmed cases in prison.”
Shah added that the outbreaks are prime examples that “demonstrate how aggressive and opportunistic this virus is.”
He also said the Maine CDC is investigating a series of virus cases at the Sanford, Saco, and Buxton fire departments. As of Tuesday’s briefing, there were four total cases involving those three firefighters.
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