Minnesota wedding linked to 70 coronavirus cases, officials say
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A summer wedding in southwest Minnesota is the source of at least 70 coronavirus cases, state infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann said Wednesday.
The number has grown from 58 on Friday to 70 at last count, she said by email.
The wedding, reception and "dance" took place Aug. 22 at KB's Bar and Grill in the small town of Ghent, the regional health authority, Southwest Health and Human Services, said in a statement.
Ehresmann described the festivities as "indoors" and said they exceeded state capacity and social distancing rules.
Southwest Health and Human Services in late August asked attendees and their close contacts to voluntarily quarantine.
At a news conference last week, Ehresmann expressed concern that attendees weren't taking the situation seriously enough. "We're hearing that people are not being tested to avoid driving numbers up," she said.
Those who avoid being tested "just make it worse" because they could unknowingly be infecting others, Ehresmann said. "None of us are an island," she said.
The state Health Department is unable to track secondary transmission affiliated with the wedding and other events, such as the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally, which is the source of 51 cases in Minnesota, state officials said during their latest news conference Wednesday.
They suggested that the department has its hands full just tracking cases directly related to noncompliant events.
Ehresmann said the department is continuing to track patients who attended the wedding. Among them are people who spanned nine Minnesota counties, including "educators, long-term care workers, and health care workers," she said.
Gov. Tim Walz said last week that social gatherings indoors and outside are contributing to a higher-than-average number of cases in the state.
"Families mixing together not in their immediate family," he said. "That's exactly the type of thing we're seeing is having an impact on some of the spread."
The state has counted 81,868 COVID-19 cases and 1,869 deaths.
Health officials in Maine have said an Aug. 7 wedding in Penobscot County was the source of at least 147 coronavirus cases, including secondary infections. Three deaths have been linked to the wedding, which 65 people attended, according to the state's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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I dedicate this article to my daughter and future son in law, for making the wise choice and canceling their wedding. I know it was a terribly disappointing decision to do, but it was also the right one (even before you had to make it).
Kudos to them.
Can you imagine how horrible it would be to start a marriage knowing that the wedding had led to multiple serious illnesses?
Your daughter made the responsible decision, both for society at large, and for her couple in particular.
I think she did the right thing, too. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed till next year.
There's a bright side: they have a whole year, to look forward to the wedding.
West Virginia University cancelled in-person classes and suspended 29 students for partying last week. One fraternity member attended a frat party despite having just found out he'd tested positive for Covid-19. We as a people really need to start exercising some self-control and empathy.
That kid should be charged with... something...
Agreed.
Remember back early in the pandemic when kids were having "Covid Parties", knowing that someone was infected, and betting that they themselves would or would not get sick.
Sure did. One girl who died said on her death bed that she had made a mistake thinking that it was a hoax.
That is a major "O-o-o-o-p-s ! !"