The city of Beaumont has traced seven cases of COVID-19 back to a Halloween event held at a local bar and cafe.
Beaumont Public Health Director Sherry Ulmer said the first positive test came back on Friday. However, the department didn’t see a cause for concern until contact tracing linked the case back to the event and six more individuals tested positive.
Ulmer said in a text message on Tuesday that while the city didn’t know how many people attended the event, “all we have heard is there were a lot.”
As a result, the city is asking anyone who attended the event to call the public health department.
Community alert
Public health officials have linked at least seven COVID-19 cases to an Oct. 31 concert at The Logon Cafe in Beaumont. They are asking anyone who attended the show to get tested for the coronavirus.
Beaumont residents: Call the Beaumont Public Health Department at 409-654-3616.
Orange County residents: Call the Hardin County Public Health Department at 409-209-5361 or 409-745-9817.
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“Our message is please avoid large crowds,” she said.
In a Facebook post last Friday, Logon Cafe Events and Operations Coordinator Chantell Cattell said the restaurant would be canceling a show that night after “some people” from the Halloween show tested positive for coronavirus. In the post she said staff is “bleaching and sanitizing every surface.”
In a follow-up post on Tuesday evening, Cattell encouraged anyone at the party to get tested as a precaution. However, she noted that staff still at the establishment have tested negative.
“Please be safe,” she finished.
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Under the latest version of Gov. Greg Abbott’s procedures to reopen Texas businesses, restaurants are allowed to operate for dine-in service with up to 75% of the total occupancy inside the restaurant. Bars and similar establishments may service up to 50% of their total listed occupancy, but all customers must be seated while eating or drinking.
It’s was unclear Tuesday evening what type of license The Logon is operating under. An employee who answered teh phone Tuesday night said no one authorized to speak with media was available. Cattell did not respond to a Facebook message.
Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames said she doesn’t know what kind of license the Logon has and she did not have any information about how many people attended the Halloween event or how many patrons were wearing a mask.
“I’ve been an advocate all along for wearing a mask when you’re in a public place. It’s been pretty well known,” she said. “I don’t know if the majority of people at this party were wearing a mask, but hopefully they were.”
The city’s news release announcing the positive cases on Tuesday evening clarifies what a contact is and what a negative test actually reveals.
The release says a person is considered to have been in contact with an infected individual if they were within 6 feet for at least 15 minutes over a 24-hour period.
It also notes that it can take 14 days after a contact to develop COVID-19 symptoms, and a negative test before the end of the 14-day quarantine period does not rule out a possible infection.
The cases come in the middle of a sharp rise in positive cases identified in the part of Jefferson County covered by the Beaumont Health Department and the county as a whole. Over the past week, the city of Beaumont has confirmed 231 new cases of the virus.
The county’s seven-day rolling average number of new cases confirmed each day rose to nearly 52 on Tuesday. That’s about 10 more daily cases than the region averaged just one week ago. And that total did not include numbers from the Port Arthur Public Health Department, which also include Mid-County.
Those numbers had not reported by press time.
Jacob Dick contributed.
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