‘It saves lives.’ Contact trace in Manatee COVID outbreak shows vaccines work, Hopes says

An outbreak of COVID-19 in Manatee County’s government administration building left two employees dead and three others hospitalized by the respiratory virus.

But it could have been even worse, County Administrator Scott Hopes noted during a Wednesday night news conference.

A contact tracing effort to track how the virus spread through the county’s IT department shows that vaccinated individuals did not get sick themselves or spread the virus to others.

“It stopped, I believe, because it ran up against a vaccinated individual,” Hopes said of the outbreak.

In an online press conference, Hopes outlined the current results of contact tracing conducted by the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County.

According to the tracing effort, the employee who introduced the virus into the IT department had direct contact with five others. Four of the individuals were not vaccinated and got sick, while a fifth, who was fully vaccinated, did not contract the virus.

The fully vaccinated employee then had direct contact with two other individuals who also did not contract the virus, according to Hopes.

It has since been confirmed that a sixth employee who works on the seventh floor where the IT department is located contracted the virus, but health officials believe it is an “outlier case” not related to the original outbreak.

Four of the six infected employees were hospitalized, according to county officials, including one who died, Alphonso Cox. The other employee who died, Mary Knight, was not hospitalized.

As employees, family members and officials continue to mourn the tragedy, Hopes urged residents to take the virus seriously and get vaccinated.

“It works, and it save lives,” Hopes said. “We have seen that here in this building.”

Contract tracing also showed that one of the infected individuals, while in a contagious state, went to another employee’s office on a different floor and worked there for more than an hour without a mask. But the other employee was fully vaccinated and did not contract the virus, Hopes said.

Manatee County to hold vaccine clinic for employees, others

The county is hosting a drive-thru vaccination clinic for employees and members of the public on Friday.

Meanwhile, only about 55% of eligible Manatee County residents have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest data from the Florida Department of Health.

In addition to vaccine clinics, Hopes said that the county is now considering new ways to encourage its employees to get vaccinated. In Hillsborough County for instance, Hopes noted that employees receive a $50 stipend and extra sick time to get the vaccine.

County officials are also working with the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County to target COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

DOH-Manatee was one of three health departments in the U.S. to recently win a grant to address the issue.

The health department has hired a specialist with the grant money and is working with the county to launch targeted efforts to ease residents’ worries about getting vaccinated.

Lab results that should confirm which strain of COVID-19 was responsible for the administration building outbreak are expected by the end of the week. It is also still unknown where the first employee known to be sick contracted the virus.

Hopes has a hunch that it may be one of the more contagious variants known to be spreading rapidly through Florida and the U.S.

Variants appear to be in Bradenton, Hopes says

“It appeared to be highly contagious,” Hopes said. “This is not the COVID that we originally saw in March of 2020. It’s my hope that individuals recognize, at least through this experience, that the current vaccinations are effective against the variants that we seem to have circulating in the population,” Hopes said.

The Manatee County COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent deaths have drawn national attention, prompting Hopes to appear on CNN on Monday night. Hopes was interviewed by the outlet again on Wednesday night, along with Kim Strong-Cox, the spouse of Alphonso Cox.

Strong-Cox said that she and her husband were considering getting the vaccine before he was infected, but said they “just weren’t ready yet.”

Strong-Cox said that while she believes vaccines should still be a choice, unvaccinated individuals should take responsibility to keep themselves and others safe.

“Take precautions. Just be considerate of others, and wear your mask and be safe,” Strong-Cox told CNN’s Erin Burnett on the “Out Front” news program on Wednesday.

Strong-Cox also said she believes that masks should still be required at this point in the pandemic.

“It’s just an incredible loss,” Hopes said of Cox’s death later on the program. “And these types of losses are preventable.”

This story was originally published June 23, 2021 at 9:20 PM.