A wedding in the small town of Millinocket, in the United States, gave rise to an outbreak of covid-19 that spread through a home and a jail, reached 177 people and killed seven. The case is now recalled in a publication by the US Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), which underlines “the importance of adhering to recommended mitigation measures, even in communities where the rate of transmission is low”.
With no cases of covid-19 registered in Millinocket, Maine, on August 7, the wedding party went ahead and gathered a little more than the maximum allowed 50 guests. According to the CDC, the rules of social distance were not respected, as well as masks (with the exception of restaurant staff) were not used during the wedding.
One of the guests started reporting covid-19 symptoms the next day, but the diagnosis was not confirmed until August 13, six days after the wedding. The report now adds new details regarding the super-contagious event and explains how the virus spread from Millinocket to a home 160 kilometers away and up to a chain 320 kilometers away.
According to the CDC, that guest was responsible for spreading 27 other guests and three workers from the restaurant where the wedding was held. The outbreak progressed and eventually reached at least 177 people, spreading outside the locality. Seven people died of infection, only one of whom had been present at the ceremony.
About half of the cases (82) were registered at the York jail, where one of the wedding guests who was infected was an employee. He only tested positive for covid-19 on August 19, that is, 12 days after the wedding and five days after he started presenting cough, sore throat, loss of taste and other symptoms of the coronavirus.
Six of the deaths occurred in a home in Madison, where the father of another of the wedding guests, both of whom were infected in the outbreak, works. Despite having symptoms, he still worked two days at the elderly’s residence, until he tested positive, infecting 38 people – 14 employees and 24 users. The other death occurred among the approximately 4500 inhabitants of Millinocket.
The CDC also clarifies that, since it did not have access to the complete list of guests, the number of infected in this chain of transmission may be higher.
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