Residents line up for the COVID-19 test at Pritzker College Prep in the Hermosa neighborhood on November 30, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The opening of a local bar in a rural Illinois county in early February was associated with at least 46 new cases of coronavirus and a school closure that affected 650 children, according to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The county’s per capita case count has doubled as a result of the bar’s opening, the CDC said. Before the event, the municipality averaged up to 42 cases per 100,000 people in seven days. That daily case averaged more than doubled 14 days after the opening, said the CDC.
The case, highlighted in a research article released on Monday, provides further evidence of how weddings and meetings in restaurants and nightclubs have the potential to become over-propagating events for Covid-19.
After a routine case investigation, local health officials identified a group of cases linked to a handful of people at the opening of the indoor bar, including a participant who was diagnosed with asymptomatic Covid-19 the day before and still was. Four people who had symptoms and then tested positive for the virus were also there that night.
“These findings demonstrate that the opening of environments such as bars, where wearing masks and physical distance are challenging, can increase the risk of transmission in the community,” said the CDC.
A bar-goer who subsequently tested positive identified 26 close contacts they had while attending school for indoor sports or in-person classes. Two student athletes also tested positive, prompting local authorities to close the school district after more than a dozen employees were potentially exposed.
Another bar-goer worked at a long-term institution where a staff member and two residents were identified as positive days after the event. At least one resident was hospitalized before being discharged the same day. None has been vaccinated.
On February 26, 12 people in eight different homes who were in contact with people who were at the bar that night tested positive for Covid-19, including five school children, according to the study. None was hospitalized.
“This investigation further demonstrates that inconsistent use of the mask and inadequate physical distance in an indoor environment can increase the risk of transmission,” wrote the CDC. “[Covid-19] the transmission originating in a business like a bar not only affects the customers and employees of the bar, but it can also affect an entire community. “
The CDC said the findings are subject to at least four limitations. First, the interviews were voluntary and many community members did not provide complete information, so the number of cases reported in the study is likely to be less than the actual number of cases.
It was also likely that not all asymptomatic cases were counted and not all contacts were tested. Information about individual behaviors, such as wearing masks and social distance, was not collected from people with positive results. Finally, the samples were not available for sequencing the entire genome, so it was not possible to determine whether the variant Covid strains were to blame for the increase in transmission.
The CDC says that a multicomponent approach, such as application of correct mask use, social distance, reduced internal capacity, adequate ventilation and contact tracking should be implemented to prevent the spread of the virus before opening environments such as bars and restaurants.