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Getty / Michele Lapini
Air-powered costumes have been banned from the Kaiser Permanente San José emergency room after an incident that may have infected 44 people with Covid-19.
A California hospital suspects that an inflatable costume may be behind a massive Covid-19 outbreak that has infected at least 44 employees. The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
An employee at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center briefly used the air disguise in the emergency room on Christmas Day to “lift the spirits” of his co-workers, but he may have unknowingly spread the virus throughout the facility.
“Any exposure, if it had occurred, would have been completely innocent and quite accidental, as the individual had no COVID symptoms and was only seeking to lift the spirits of those around him during a very stressful time,” the hospital said in a statement.
“If anything, this should serve as a very real reminder that the virus is widespread and often symptom-free, and we all need to be vigilant,” the statement continued.
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Since then, the emergency room has undergone a deep cleaning, and all employees who tested positive between December 27 and New Year’s Day must isolate themselves. Kaiser Permanente San Jose is still conducting contact tracing to determine who else may have been exposed.
While the hospital had administered the Covid-19 vaccine to some emergency room workers before Christmas Day, the first dose does not reach its full potential until the second is administered. Even then, none of the approved vaccines are 100% effective in preventing someone from contracting the virus.
It may not need to be said, but air-powered costumes have been banned from the Kaiser Permanente San José emergency room.
California has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the United States with 2.4 million reported. More than 26,000 people in the state have died from the virus.
