#Coronavirus cases linked to Maine wedding reach jail, nursing home

More coronavirus cases have been linked to a Maine wedding, officials said, detailing how the virus spread to a nursing home and a jail complex more than 200 miles away.

According to a Wednesday update from Robert Long, spokesman for Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 85 cases associated with a wedding reception held Aug. 7 at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket.

Millinocket Regional Hospital said one female inpatient admission linked to the event had died during the early afternoon on Friday.

Long said said 32 of the total 85 infections were primary cases, or people who attended the wedding. Meanwhile, 33 were secondary cases and 20 were tertiary cases (people who had close contact with attendees or secondary cases, respectively).

In a streamed press briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, described the outbreak as a “series of concentric rings … all emanating from this one Aug. 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, which are included in the total 85 cases.

Shah said the coronavirus outbreak reached the nursing home because a wedding guest infected their parent and the parent infected another one of their children who works at the nursing home.

Within two-and-a-half weeks, four residents and another staff member were infected, Shah said.

Aside from the nursing home, the wedding virus outbreak also managed to spread to a county jail located about 230 miles away.

“This morning our disease detectives identified a connection between the wedding/reception in Millinocket and the York County Jail complex,” Shah said during the streamed press briefing on Tuesday.

He said the evolving situation had a total of 18 cases, seven of which were among inmates and nine were among staff members. Another two staff members were infected who work with the county government in that complex.

Shah explained that a staff member at the jail attended the wedding and was also “among the very first confirmed cases at the jail.”

Shah added that the outbreaks are prime examples that “demonstrate how aggressive and how 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 the Tuesday briefing, there were four total cases at those three fire departments.