A “big home party” in Chatham earlier this month has resulted in at least 10 positive cases of COVID-19 so far and a “group notification” sent by the state Department of Health to city officials.
“This is something that I think we’ve all been very concerned about,” said Dr. Robert Duncanson, the city’s director of natural resources, saying The Chatham Board of Selectmen during a meeting on Tuesday night.
According to Duncanson, many of those who attended the party are restaurant workers and “a large number” of people there were not wearing masks. Between 30 and 50 people attended the party, Boston 25 reported.
“None of them appear to be for Chatham residents, but it only highlights the fact that these big parties where people don’t practice social distancing and don’t wear masks can have significant impacts,” Duncanson said during the Tuesday meeting, noting that there were nine positive cases at the time.
However, on Wednesday, he said to Cape Cod Times a tenth case was added and this person is a Chatham resident.
As a result, the city sent a notification to restaurants to inform them of what happened, according to Duncanson. He said a restaurant has temporarily closed, but was not sure if it was related to the group or not.
“As I said, I hope this isn’t much bigger,” he said.
Overall, Barnstable County has seen 1,639 COVID-19 cases and 154 deaths as of the time of the meeting, according to Duncanson. For Chatham, the latest data town by town, released Wednesday, shows 21 total cases with less than five cases in the past two weeks. His positivity percentage is at 1.37 percent.
Although it is unclear if it is related to the party, Kream N ‘Kone announced Wednesday that it is “closing until further notice” after a worker tested positive.
“We will close to thoroughly clean and disinfect the restaurant and all remaining employees will be screened.” a post on Facebook said.
Hangar B restaurant returned to takeout for two weeks “with recent cases reported in our community,” a The Facebook post said. While many of the workers there have tested negative, some are quarantined for 14 days as a precaution.
“We will re-evaluate after this period to consider resuming the full-service dinner,” the post said. “Rest assured that we take your safety and ours very seriously and will continue to offer you our food in a way that reflects that commitment.”
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