A group of 16 people tested positive for the coronavirus after they visited a reopened bar in Jacksonville, FL, according to CNN. Three of the friends spoke to CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday and said they wanted to remind people that “the pandemic is not over.” “We want to raise awareness and get ahead of it,” Kat Layton said. “We want to tell people it’s really not ready for what we thought it was ready for. It’s too soon.” The group gathered for a friend’s birthday on June 6 at Lynch’s Irish Pub at Jacksonville Beach. The bar was crowded, and no one wore masks. Nobody in the group knew anyone who had contracted the coronavirus, and they thought that reopening the state and city meant “everything was fine.” “I feel foolish,” Erika Crisp said. “It’s too soon.” Within a few days of the birthday party at the bar, they started getting sick. Every person in the group tested positive. Some had symptoms, but none had serious illness. “Receiving text messages that my friends were just boom, positive, boom, positive, boom, positive, back to back,” Dara Sweat said. “It was overwhelming.” Since then, they’ve received messages from strangers who got sick after visiting the same bar at the same time. The bar tested all 49 employees, and seven were positive, according to First Coast News, an ABC affiliate in Jacksonville. The seven employees worked on June 6. The bar also closed for deep cleaning and sanitization. The bar has now reopened. Florida continues to reopen businesses although the Florida Department of Health reported a record-high of 2,800 new coronavirus cases on Monday. That marks the largest single-day increase for Florida since the beginning of the pandemic. “We’re not shutting down, you know, we’re going to go forward,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday, according to CNN. “We’re going to continue to protect the most vulnerable. You know, we’re going to urge, continue to advise, particularly our elderly population, to maintain social distancing, avoid crowds.” Source
