275 people attended indoor wedding. 70 now have coronavirus, Minnesota officials say

A large Minnesota coronavirus outbreak has been linked to an indoor wedding attended by 275 people, health officials say.

Those who went to the Aug. 22 wedding in Ghent were asked late last month to quarantine for 14 days, according to Southwest Health & Human Services.

The health department initially said there were “several” COVID-19 cases stemming from the wedding and reception, but by Sept. 3 it had produced 56 cases in nine counties, state infectious disease expert Kris Ehresmann said in a briefing live streamed by the Grand Forks Herald.

Cases increased to 70 by Wednesday, Ehresmann told NBC News. Educators, long-term care workers and health care workers are among those infected, she said last week.

There may be more people from the wedding who were infected. Some attendees were not being tested to avoid driving numbers up, Ehresmann said in her briefing.

“By failing to acknowledge a problem, you don’t make that problem go away, you just make it worse,” Ehresmann said. “People who don’t get tested for COVID because they are fearful of the impact it will have on themselves or their school or their community, in reality are making the problem worse.”

Masks were not worn at the indoor wedding, where aerosol was easier to transmit, the infectious disease expert said. The wedding’s crowd of 275 people also exceeded the state’s guidelines for gatherings.

The reception and dance were held at KB’s Bar and Grill in southwestern Minnesota, according to Southwest Health and Human Services. The venue, which features an indoor event space, has not commented on social media about the outbreak.

Minnesota has had 81,868 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Wednesday, Sept. 9, according to the Department of Health.

This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 9:21 AM with the headline "275 people attended indoor wedding. 70 now have coronavirus, Minnesota officials say."