Eight deaths now tied to Millinocket-area wedding outbreak

An eighth person has now died from COVID-19 as part of an outbreak stemming from an Aug. 7 wedding in the Millinocket-area, even though none of those eight people attended the wedding themselves.

The most recent death was also associated with the Madison nursing home that’s still trying to contain a secondary outbreak of COVID-19. Seven of the eight fatal cases tied to the wedding have been in people from Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center.

A man in his 80s from Somerset County — where Maplecrest is located — was also the state’s most recent COVID-19 death, but a spokesperson from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention did not specifically say he was the seventh person to die at the nursing home.

The nursing home outbreak started after a worker caught COVID-19 from a parent, who had caught it in from another child who attended the Aug. 7 wedding, according to Maine CDC.

The first worker at Maplecrest to test positive for the disease was allowed to work a 10-hour shift on Aug. 11 even though she had several symptoms associated with COVID-19, according to a report from state health officials who concluded that the failure to screen staff contributed to the outbreak. It’s not clear if that’s the same person who is thought to have introduced the disease to the nursing home.

At least 177 cases of COVID-19 have now been linked to the Aug. 7 wedding, either in people who attended the event themselves or who caught it through further transmission. The event included a ceremony at an East Millinocket church and a 62-person reception at a nearby inn.

The first person to die in connection with the wedding was an 88-year-old woman from East Millinocket, who also didn’t attend the event.