Nearly 150 CCP Virus Cases, 3 Deaths Linked to Super-spreader Event in Maine

A general view of the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sept. 30, 2014. Tami Chappell/Reuters

A total of 147 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases are either directly or indirectly associated with a super-spreader event that took place on Aug. 7 in Millinocket, Maine, Robert Long, spokesperson for the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC), told The Epoch Times in a statement today.

This number included 72 positive cases from the York County Jail as well as 19 positive cases from the Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center in Madison.

So far, three deaths were linked to the wedding reception. Each of the three deaths were indirectly linked to the reception.

Nirav D. Shah, the director of the Maine CDC said in a Sept. 3 CCP virus briefing that the “cases are wedding guests and their secondary or tertiary contacts.”

He said one guest happened to be in close contact with a staff member at the Maplecrest Rehabilitation & Living Center, which led to an outbreak there. That contact led to 15 additional cases, including eight staff members and seven residents.

It wasn’t just a staff member at the Maplecrest who caught COVID-19 indirectly from the wedding, said Shah. One of the guests at the wedding in Millinocket happened to be a staff member of the York County Jail.

“In addition to that one individual at the York County Jail, there are now 18 additional staff members who have tested positive, 46 inmates who have tested positive at the York County Jail, and seven family members of staff, who now have confirmed COVID-19 infections,” he said.

The Maine CDC previously said that it had opened an investigation on Aug. 17 into the wedding reception and that it would provide updates as information became available.

Approximately 65 guests attended the reception, which was more than the limit of 50 allowed in the executive order issued by Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Aug. 1.

The Big Moose Inn, which housed the reception in Millinocket, issued a statement on Aug. 28, apologizing for misinterpreting the rules that ultimately led to the outbreak.

“We understood that there could be no more than 50 persons in our largest room. We did make an error in the interpretation of that rule. Our interpretation was that we 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,” Big Moose Inn wrote.