‘Ignorance of risk’: 2 partygoers dead, dozens get COVID in outbreak at Florida club
A fun night out during a pandemic can be risky.
A group of revelers in Florida found out the hard way late last month. At least two paid with their lives.
As first reported by Flagler Live, two people who attended gatherings late last month at the Social Club of Palm Coast contracted COVID-19 and are now dead. A 69-year-old woman died on Aug. 31 and a 74-year-old man on Sept. 13.
At least 50 other partygoers are infected with the virus. A third person whose age is unknown is in hospice, Flagler County health department chief Bob Snyder told the media outlet.
The club, which is closed until Sept. 28, is giving updates on social media. On Sept. 12, event organizers announced the outbreak to the public, saying that they had been in touch with most of the guests who attended the parties on Aug. 28 (which included karaoke) and Aug. 29.
They said the building had since been thoroughly sanitized by CDC-sanctioned company Serve Pro.
Despite the club doing temperature checks at the door before admittance to the events, the infected person or people somehow got through.
“As we have found out temperature checks are not always a proven stop-gap for COVID as no one who entered the club had a fever those two nights,” a Facebook post noted. “This could have happened at any club but for some reason it happened at our club.”
Club secretary Gloria April told FlagerLive that almost all people entered wearing masks but admitted social distancing was not enforced.
“We opened up the big room and tried to have people go into the big room and they didn’t want to go,” she said. “You know, you can’t shoot people.”
To curb the spread of the coronavirus, the state of Florida has limited indoor gatherings to 50 people, and has recommended face masks and constant hand washing. But still, people still apparently can’t stay away from one another, leading to alarming superspreader events.
“This is actually a pretty dramatic event, it’s almost publishable,” Dr. Stephen Bickel of the Flagler and Volusia Health Department said in a statement. “It’s really a tragedy. It’s certainly profound ignorance of the risk.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 10:36 AM with the headline "‘Ignorance of risk’: 2 partygoers dead, dozens get COVID in outbreak at Florida club."
