ATLANTA, GA – May 26, 2023 – On May 26th, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that at least 181 people who attended a CDC-run conference in April had come down with a COVID-19 infection. No one has been hospitalized at the time of the announcement.
The CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) had a 4-day conference from April 24-27 at a hotel in Atlanta. This was the first in-person meeting for this group in 4 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group identifies and fights outbreaks of disease. About 1,800 people were in attendance. As reported in the Washington Post, attendees said that the conference was crowded. Many of the meetings were in small rooms. There was much socializing. Most everyone who got sick was younger than 65.
The CDC conducted a survey on May 5-12 of all in-person attendees with an 80% response rate. 70% of people who responded to the survey said that they did not wear a face mask. More than half of those who tested positive had no prior COVID infection. Almost all of the responders had at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. One in four of the people who tested positive were treated with antiviral medication. There was a higher risk of getting infected for people who were at the meeting for 3 days or longer compared with those who attended 2 days or less.
The national public health COVID-19 emergency may have ended on May 11th, however, the virus is still with us and is not going away anytime soon. COVID precautions should be considered if people are going to be attending in-person conferences and plan travel this summer. COVID-19 transmission risk-reducing measures include: optimizing indoor air quality, staying outside as much as possible, reducing the size of crowds, and wearing high quality medical masks like N95 and KN95 styles when indoors and in crowds.
William Schaffner, an infectious disease physician at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said “this outbreak dramatically illustrates that if the circumstances are right, this virus can really spread to a lot of people.”
Listen to the full report below:
Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]
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