COVID-19 cases linked to Charlotte church event jump to ‘more than 23,’ county says
After sounding the alarm on Twitter Saturday, Mecklenburg County Public Health said Monday it is now investigating more than 23 confirmed cases of COVID-19 linked to an event at the United House of Prayer for All People on Beatties Ford Road.
On Saturday, Mecklenburg County urged all people who attended convocation events at the church Oct. 10 and 11 to get tested. At the time, the county linked at least nine cases of COVID-19 to the weekend event.
That number has now grown, according to Mecklenburg deputy health director Raynard Washington.
The county’s tally of over 23 cases for the two-day event appears to be the highest number of cases publicly announced by local health officials that were linked to a singular event or location.
Only recently did the Mecklenburg Public Health Department take to publicly naming entities or businesses where outbreak or large contact tracing investigations occurred. For months, the county and the state have maintained a list of schools and residential care facilities where multiple people have died or tested positive but those locations have mandatory reporting requirements under communicable disease regulations.
Planners of the church events made “significant efforts to ensure mask wearing and social distancing among the hundreds of attendees,” Washington said in a statement.
But attendees did not always comply with the recommendations, he said. There were both indoor and outdoor events.
Church officials could not be reached for comment Monday.
Washington did not state how many confirmed cases the county has dealt with other than it was over 23. Those confirmed COVID-19 cases are among event attendees and close contacts of attendees, Washington said.
Anyone who attended the event should watch for COVID-19 symptoms and get tested, he said.
In a Saturday tweet, the county pushed free testing available Sunday at StarMed Health on Tuckaseegee Road. More testing sites are available online.
There have been 31,777 reported COVID-19 cases among Mecklenburg County residents since March, the county said Monday. That’s 216 more COVID-19 cases than were reported Sunday.
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 5:30 PM.
.jpg)