Central Illinois Super-Spreader Event Shows Perils of Reopening Too Soon

 

An article just published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR; basically a journal for CDC scientists) describes a super-spreader event in Central Illinois in February. It shows why it's still too early to behave like the pandemic is behind us.

The article describes an "opening event" at a bar in a rural Illinois county. I assume it was Douglas County since their Department of Public Health is named in a footnote. 

The event was held indoors in the poorly ventilated bar. The bar has six employees. Though they don't know the exact number of people attending the opening, the bar holds about 100. Fourteen days after the event the county's daily case rate more than doubled.  

According to the article, "[o]n February 12, through routine testing and contact tracing, local health department staff members identified a cluster of cases linked to the bar event, including a case in an asymptomatic attendee who received a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis the day before the event."

The party resulted in 26 customers and three staff members becoming infected. These people caused 17 secondary infections in several households with children, on a school sports team, and in a nursing home.  The event resulted in closure of a school serving 650 children, costing 9100 person-days of instruction.

Wow. That part about the asymptomatic attendee is infuriating! It takes a special kind of asshole to get a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis one day then head out to a crowded bar the next to infect your friends and neighbors, and their kids, and their relatives in nursing homes, and close down the local school. It's my most fervent hope that this individual is, or soon will be, in prison.

This should also serve as a cautionary tale to all the marshmallow-eating officials out there who are rushing to dismantle mitigation efforts too soon.

 Image by Corona-zona

 

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