Maine Wedding Connected to 7 Deaths from COVID-19

I wrote about this wedding reception at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket last week and the case count from this one wedding reception is growing.

Since Maine has had a very low infection rate, contact tracing on this one event has been fairly straightforward but it is mind-numbing how quickly this virus can take off.

According to reporting from cbsnews.com, the wedding reception has been tied to 175 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and at least 7 people have died.

Perhaps the most alarming statistic is that those deaths connected to the wedding reception were not from people that attended the wedding. Guests at the wedding reception carried it to other places and there is a concern that it will continue to spread, the article stated.

Dr. Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine CDC tells cbsnews.com that the “Maine CDC is concerned about where we are, and I’m asking everyone else to share in that concern.  COVID-19, right now, is not on the other side of the fence.  It is in our yards.”

This most recent outbreak from one event is an example of how quickly the virus can spread across hundreds of miles.

Shah told CBS affiliate WABI that “The trends that we’ve seen over the last two weeks tell us that things are either getting worse or not better. We are asking everybody that they can do their part.  Even though there were positive signs on the horizon, low hospitalization rates, generally favorable levels of testing, there are still concerning signs.”

We are all in this together.  Let’s do our part to slow the spread.