RUMFORD — The COVID-19 outbreak at Rumford Community Home has grown to 52 cases among residents and 13 cases among staff, a spokesperson for parent company Central Maine Healthcare confirmed Thursday evening.

Four residents have died due to the virus during the current outbreak.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention opened an outbreak investigation at the 84-bed skilled nursing and assisted living facility on Oct. 7, when a staff member tested positive for COVID. The following morning, a resident went to the hospital emergency department, where they tested positive. The staff member had last been on campus Oct. 3, the facility said in a Facebook post.

Earlier this week, CMH said it was sending additional providers to Rumford Community Home to administer monoclonal antibodies for residents that were eligible to receive the treatment. Residents in all four of the units had tested positive.

“The health and safety of our residents and team members at Rumford Community Home is our top priority,” CMH’s long-term care division president, Peter Wright, said in a statement Monday. “We cannot afford to let our guard down, given the seriousness of this outbreak among an elderly population.”

According to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, 94% of staff in the skilled nursing units and 88% of staff in the assisted housing units were fully vaccinated as of Sept. 30.

About 87% of residents were fully vaccinated as of Oct. 3, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

It is not clear how many of the residents and staff who tested positive for COVID were fully vaccinated.

This is the first outbreak at the facility since the pandemic began, according to CMH.

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