Island boards of health reported three new coronavirus cases Wednesday, making nine new Island cases this week and 11 since Friday as a case cluster stemming from a wedding held over Columbus Day weekend continues to grow.

Meanwhile, a coronavirus patient who was admitted to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital this weekend was released to their home in good condition,”according to a hospital spokesman. The patient is the second in recent weeks to have been hospitalized with the virus on the Island.

But in an email earlier Wednesday, Tisbury health agent Maura Valley wrote that a ninth case had been traced to a wedding that was held on the Island on Sunday, Oct. 11. Health officials began investigating the cluster last week after an attendee tested positive on Oct. 20.

The event included a combination of indoor and outdoor proceedings. While the event adhered to local and state gathering restrictions, health officials said participants violated out-of-state travel protocols requiring negative tests or quarantine if arriving from a high risk state.

One of the three new cases reported Wednesday on the Island was connected to the cluster, which constitutes one of the first large-scale instances of community spread reported on the Island. Some, but not all, of the nine new cases reported this week are connected to the cluster, Ms. Valley said. 

Boards of health have not previously reported any other cluster outbreaks on the Vineyard.

“Of the 9 cases linked to the event, 7 were reported on Martha’s Vineyard and two reported in out-of-state wedding guests who were diagnosed after leaving the Island,” Ms. Valley wrote in her email. “Of the seven cases we are following on the Island, two have completed their isolation and have been released and five are currently being followed by public health.”

The Island has now had 98 patients test positive for the virus since early March, with the hospital reporting 56 positive tests and TestMV reporting 42. The hospital is testing symptomatic patients and close contacts for the virus, while TestMV is a free comprehensive testing facility focused on asymptomatic testing.

An additional 24 patients have tested positive for viral antibodies or been symptomatically diagnosed with the diseases, bringing the Island’s total case count to 122.

The 11 total cases reported since Friday is likely the largest number of cases reported in a week since the pandemic began.

Statewide, case numbers continued to climb after spiking last week, with the Department of Public Health reporting more than 1,000 new cases for the fifth straight day even though case numbers had previously not reached the thousands since early May.

The DPH reported 1,137 new cases Wednesday and 36 new deaths, as the state eclipsed the 150,000 case threshold and confirmed that 9,700 patients have now died from the virus.

The state’s seven-day average positive test rate is now 1.8 per cent - up from a low of 0.8 per cent in September - and 566 patients are now hospitalized. The number of hospitalizations has nearly doubled in the past month.

Nantucket has also seen a recent spike in coronavirus case numbers, with 27 new cases reported this past week, including nine new cases on Tuesday. The Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror reported that the recent case jump is likely due to a family that works in landscaping.

The island was downgraded into the moderate risk category by the state last week. Three Covid-19 related deaths have occurred on Nantucket since the outbreak began. There have been no Covid-19 related deaths on Martha’s Vineyard.