Maine Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported incidents of COVID-19 outbreaks at two Lewiston-Auburn health care facilities on Tuesday, Montello Manor in Lewiston and Support Solutions in Auburn.

Dr. Nirav Shah, Maine CDC director, said during Tuesday’s cornavirus news briefing that his office recently opened outbreak investigations after recording three cases associated with Montello Manor and four at Support Solutions.

The investigations are ongoing, CDC officials said.

Support Solutions is a nonprofit organization that provides services to adults with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges. Executive Director Christine Chute said it has 28 locations statewide serving 220 individuals, including 50 in residential programs, and employs 250 on its staff. The four confirmed cases involved two staff and two individuals who provide or receive services in Auburn.

Chute said Support Solutions consolidated those 28 locations into three after the initial nationwide outbreak of COVID-19 in March to reduce resident and staff exposure. She said the organization learned of its first confirmed positive test last Wednesday and has been working with state officials every day since then.

Chute said testing is ongoing, while employees who have tested negative have been able to work with the help of personal protective equipment.

Montello Manor did not respond to voice mail messages seeking comment.

Shah also updated the ongoing investigation of an outbreak at Tambrands in Auburn, saying there continues to be a total of seven COVID-19 cases associated with manufacturing facility on Hotel Road. That number is unchanged from when the CDC first reported the outbreak May 28.

Shah said outbreaks at health care facilities are easier for his office to trace and track than workplace outbreaks.

“In health care facility outbreaks,” Shah said, “there’s a better sense of who’s in the facility at any one time, what their work schedule was, what wing they were on, which patients they interacted with. So, in health care facility outbreaks, nursing homes, assisted living, group homes, we have a much better ability to really zero in on how the outbreak may have been introduced and how it spread.”

“In some health care facility outbreaks,” he said, “we have been able to identify if not the first individual, among the first cadre of folks who may have come into the facility and then led to further transmission.”

Shah said officials have learned several important lessons from their tracing of the virus in health care facilities.

“One of the key lessons learned from that is … the importance of things like universal use of masking and face-coverings, even if people aren’t feeling well,” Shah said. “The other (lesson) is what’s called ‘cohorting’ within the facility, which is trying to have the facility structured so a small number of health care workers takes care of the same small number of patients. That way, if there is an outbreak, it doesn’t spread as far and wide (and) if it is introduced by a health care worker, the number of folks that they may infect is limited.”

Montello Manor and Support Solutions were among five new outbreaks, three health care facilities and two workplaces, reported at Tuesday’s briefing. Serenity Residential Care in Gorham (five confirmed cases), Nichols Manufacturing in Portland (seven) and Abbott Laboratories in Scarborough (23).

Shah said Abbott Laboratories started testing employees in April and has expanded its testing to include contracted workers who enter its campus in addition to full-time employees.

Shah also announced the state’s 100th death from COVID-19, a woman in her 90s from Cumberland County. The Maine CDC is reporting 2,606 cases across the state, an increase of 18 since Monday. That consists of 2,322 confirmed cases and 284 probable cases.

Overall, 302 people have been hospitalized at some point during their coronavirus illness, Shah said. Currently, 29 people are hospitalized, 1o of whom are in intensive care and seven remaining on ventilators.

Shah said 1,992 people have recovered, an increase of 101 from Monday.

“The significant increase in the number of individuals who have recovered is probably a function of some large outbreaks that occurred a few weeks ago where individuals who were affected have now moved on through the recovery phase,” he said. “It’s also a function of our process of going through data, making sure it’s accurate. But much of what we are seeing in this large number of increased recoveries is the fact that in the not too recent past there were a large number of  outbreaks across the state and as individuals have grappled with coronavirus and have come out successfully on the other side, they’re now marked as recovered.”

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