Maine's net total of COVID-19 cases logged since the pandemic arrived in the state rose overnight by 22. The number of deaths remained unchanged at 132.
That is according to new figures the Maine Center for Disease Control posted Friday. They indicate that 3,887 people have recovered from the virus, 40 more than Thursday. That leaves 417 active cases, a drop of 18 since Thursday.
But in an email Friday afternoon, Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long said several additional cases associated with a wedding and reception in Millinocket August 7 are not included in Friday's totals.
Long said the number of cases associated with the Millinocket event have now grown from 87 Thursday to 123, due to the growth of a related outbreak at the building that houses the York County Jail.
Long says 36 new cases have been confirmed at the facility, bringing the total number of cases among inmates and staff to 54. The wedding outbreak also sparked another outbreak of nine cases at the Maplecrest Rehab Center in Madison.
A spokesperson representing the site of the wedding, The Big Moose Inn, issued a statement Friday saying that facility management misinterpreted CDC guidelines and thought they “could take a wedding party of more than 50 persons, and split them between two rooms as long as it didn’t exceed our total capacity or a specific room’s capacity.” This put the inn “in violation of the gathering of people over the maximum number allowed by Maine DECD guidelines.”
In the statement, they also say that they have increased sanitation measures and other health precautions since the outbreak, and staff members have all been tested or are quarantining.
Earlier this week, the inn’s license was suspended because a state inspection found continued violation of restrictions in our dining area. The violations were corrected, according to the inn’s statement, and the license was reinstated Friday. A total of 417 Maine people infected with COVID-19 have had to be hospitalized at some point during their illness. As of Thursday, ten people were in the hospital, six of them in intensive care. One person was on a ventilator.
The CDC is scheduled to provide another briefing on the coronavirus at 2 p.m. Tuesday, September 1.
Updated 4:19 p.m. Aug. 28, 2020.
