A covered bar opening event in rural Illinois in February was related to 46 cases of COVID-19, a new study found, highlighting the dangers that indoor meetings in places like bars can pose.
The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the event was linked to 26 cases of COVID-19 in customers at the bar opening and three in employees, who then spread the virus to 17 other people who were not in the bar. opening of the bar, known as “secondary cases”.
Showing the side effects that an event can have, these secondary cases included 12 people in eight families with children, two on a school sports team and three in a nursing home, the study concluded. A school serving 650 students was closed as a result of the outbreak, and a nursing home resident was hospitalized.
The results serve as a wake-up call, as many states lift restrictions on bars and other businesses. Illinois recently delayed a new stage of reopening as hospitalizations increased, but bars and restaurants are currently open with capacity limits.
“These findings demonstrate that the opening of environments such as bars, where the use of masks and physical distance are challenging, can increase the risk of transmission in the community,” says the study.
The CDC recommended a series of measures to help reduce risk in environments such as bars, including reduced occupancy, spacing between people by at least six feet, improved ventilation and an emphasis on outdoor seating, which is significantly safer .
The virus was introduced into the nursing home through a participant in the bar event who worked in the nursing home and was asymptomatic, resulting in the infection of an additional staff member and two residents. None of the four were vaccinated, although all staff and residents of the nursing home had already received the vaccine, the study said, which seems to highlight the problem of vaccine hesitation.
The study also shows the importance of staying at home when you are sick or when you are diagnosed with COVID-19. According to the study, a participant in the bar event, who was asymptomatic, was diagnosed with COVID-19 the day before the event. Another four people had symptoms while attending the event and were later diagnosed with COVID-19, the study said.
The bar had a capacity for about 100 people, although it is not clear how many people were at the event, the study said. The participants did not keep their distance from each other, used an “inconsistent” mask and “there was no external air flow”.
The level of spread of coronavirus in rural Illinois County, which was not identified, more than doubled after the event, from about 41 cases per 100,000 people to about 86 cases per 100,000, the study found.
Bars and dinners in indoor restaurants have long been seen as risk factors for the spread of COVID-19, as they bring people together indoors and it is difficult to wear a mask when eating and drinking.
“Similar meetings that involve eating or drinking, such as on-site dining in restaurants, weddings and nightclubs, have been associated with an increased risk of acquiring COVID-19 and have the potential to become overdistribution events,” the study concluded.