- Dozens of people tested positive for COVID-19 after visiting a restaurant in East Lansing, Michigan, health officials said.
- At least 80 people who visited Harper’s Restaurant & Brew Pub contracted the virus after the visit, and five others contracted “secondary infections” from those customers, the Lansing State Journal reported.
- Health officials are asking anyone who visited the restaurant June 12-20 to quarantine for two weeks.
- The restaurant said in a statement on Facebook that it has temporarily closed and will remove the lineups and install an air purification system before reopening.
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A Michigan restaurant has recently been linked to dozens of cases of coronavirus, and public health officials are asking anyone visiting it between June 12 and June 20 to be quarantined for two weeks.
On June 24, the Ingham County Health Department announced that 34 people who had recently visited Harper’s Restaurant & Brew Pub in East Lansing were positive for COVID-19. Three days later, that number shot up to 85, the Lansing State Journal reported Saturday.
Eighty of those who tested positive for coronavirus visited the restaurant, and five were considered “secondary infections,” meaning they had not visited themselves, but instead caught the virus from someone who did, according to the newspaper. State Lansing.
The owners of the restaurant said in a statement on Facebook that they had reopened their businesses to 50% of capacity on June 8, according to the executive order of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. But long lines immediately formed on the public sidewalk outside the restaurant, and some customers refused to follow certain recommendations for social distancing, according to the statement.
“We have tried to instruct customers waiting in line to cover their faces and practice social distancing through signs on the public sidewalk and with a banner on our railing,” the statement said. “Our supervision of the line on our stairs has been successful, but trying to get customers to follow our recommendations on the public sidewalk has been a challenge.”
The statement says the restaurant has temporarily closed and plans to remove the alignments and modify its HVAC system to “install air purification technology.”
The statement said the new shutdown would likely harm restaurant employees, who had just returned from a three-month layoff.
“They have to pay the rent, the mortgages, the car payments, the grocery bills and the daily living expenses,” the statement said. “But we believe for everyone’s safety, it is the right thing to do.”
