Funeral linked to 30 coronavirus cases in Minnesota, friends say. ‘I took a chance’
A decision to hold a funeral service during the coronavirus pandemic has dozens of attendees now fighting COVID-19.
Thirty people who attended the Lake Park, Minneosta funeral service of 78-year-old Francis Perreault now have the coronavirus and five of them have been hospitalized, according to the Forum News Service. Between 35 and 50 people attended the service, friends say.
Perreault died from health conditions unrelated to COVID-19 on July 4 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Detroit Lakes. There was a visitation and prayer service July 12, followed by the Mass and burial July 13, according to his obituary.
“It was in this fellowship hall and I remember looking at the windows and wishing I could open them. Like, ‘This is not good that everyone is packed together in this room,’” Kathleen Keen, who attended the funeral with her husband, told WCCO. “I don’t regret making the choice to be there for my friend. I wish this virus wasn’t happening.”
Stephanie Schindler, Perreault’s daughter, said the outbreak from the funeral “is harder than losing my dad,” according to the Forum News Service.
Precautions were taken at the services. People wore masks and the pews included partitions to keep everyone separated, Keen told the Forum News Service.
But masks came off after the funeral, as the attendees began consoling one another with hugs and prayer together, the Star Tribune reported.
“I think it’s part of the process of coming to terms with things,” Schindler said. “It’s closure for the living and support for each other.”
Keen said she does not regret attending the funeral service to be there for her friend.
“I just thought I had to be there and I took a chance and it is what it is,” she told KVRR.
Schindler added to the Forum News Service, “We feel like, what if they had just Skyped? This might not have happened.”
Doug Schultz, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health, told the Star Tribune family gatherings should be avoided during the pandemic.
“As the governor has said, it pains us all to see that it’s probably not a good idea to have those gatherings. And it pains us to see Minnesotans not having these important rites of passage,” Schultz said. “But COVID-19 is still very much with us. The pandemic is still very much with us. And so gatherings like these do pose a risk.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 10:23 AM with the headline "Funeral linked to 30 coronavirus cases in Minnesota, friends say. ‘I took a chance’."