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The opening of a bar in February in rural Illinois led to at least 46 cases of COVID-19 and hospitalization.
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It was also related to the closure of a school that affected 650 children.
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The case demonstrates the importance of mitigation measures as the facilities continue to reopen.
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A February bar opening in rural Illinois led to at least 46 cases of COVID-19, the closure of a school affecting 650 children and the hospitalization of a resident in a long-term care facility, a Control Center report said. and Disease Prevention.
One participant had tested positive for COVID-19 the day before the event, but had no symptoms, while four others had symptoms of COVID-19 on the day of the event, the report said.
The CDC reported that, despite spaced tables and signs encouraging distance and wearing a mask, customers did not wear masks consistently or maintained physical distance, and the indoor location had no external airflow.
The report “describes what can happen when we don’t follow the appropriate mitigation strategies when not everyone is fully vaccinated,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, during a news conference on Monday.
Cases spread across the community
Illinois health department officials first tracked down a group of cases until the bar event, which was mostly white men between 18 and 44 years old. It is unclear how many people attended, but the venue had a capacity for 100 people.
The state health department investigated further, finding 46 cases linked to the event, including 26 bargoers and three employees. An infected person received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. (A single dose offers only partial immunity, and even that takes a few weeks to reach full effectiveness.)
The infected participants then appeared to transmit the virus to at least 17 other people in the community, including 12 who lived in homes with children.
One participant began to experience rhinorrhea two days after visiting the bar and subsequently infected two student athletes who were in close contact with the participant during indoor sports or face-to-face classes at school.
Ultimately, as 13 employees were isolated, quarantined or absent because of their own child being quarantined, the school, which has 650 students, had to close for two weeks, leading to 9,100 days of in-school attendance.
Another participant in a bar event who worked as a nursing assistant at a long-term institution tested positive for COVID-19 four days after the event. As a result, another unit employee and two residents were infected, and one resident ended up in the hospital with COVID-19 for a day. All infected employees or residents had previously rejected a coronavirus vaccine.
CDC Director: This event shows ‘the impressive transmissibility of this virus’
The event also appeared to affect the community’s COVID-19 rates more generally, with an average of seven days of daily incidence more than doubling in the following two weeks.
The study authors said that even more people were likely infected by the event, in part because the interviews with public health officials were voluntary and many community members involved did not want to share details about who they were in contact with. They added that the investigators probably did not notice some asymptomatic cases and their contacts.
“As we work to vaccinate more people and community businesses begin to reopen, these findings underscore the great impact of a single event, affecting communities, schools, families and frail older people,” said Walensky.
She continued, “It emphasizes the impressive transmissibility of this virus and the continuing need for layered prevention strategies, including reducing the number of people indoors, improving the building’s ventilation and using outdoor spaces as the weather permits.”
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