DANCE TO HOSP
Shock! GOP COVID conga guy gets disease
A Queens man was reportedly hospitalized for coronavirus after attending a local Republican club’s holiday party where attendees shunned masks and danced in a “COVID conga line,” as Gov. Cuomo described it.
James Trent was taken to North Shore University Hospital after partying at the Dec. 9 bash, where revelers appeared to ignore guidelines about social distancing and were caught on video line-dancing to the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing.”
Trent and members of the club that threw the party did not immediately answer requests for comment.
He claimed to the Queens Daily Eagle, which first reported the party, that he didn’t do “anything risky.”
“I wasn’t on the conga line. I ate by myself,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t know how I got this.
“It was a wonderful time and a great party, but I’m not happy I got sick,” Trent added.
He was expected to be released from the hospital on Thursday, according to a Facebook post by the Whitestone Republican Club, which hosted the party.
The group held the event in spite of pleas from authorities to avoid holiday gatherings as the coronavirus outbreak has surged in recent months.
Video of the event posted on Twitter showed more than a dozen middle-aged partiers doing a line dance, with a man waving a Trump flag at the front. Partway through the antics, City Council candidate Vickie Paladino is seen jumping to the front of the line and pumping her fists.
“The message that we’re sending is that there’s no need to be terrified by COVID and we need to support our small businesses, we need to get on with our lives,” Thomas Paladino, her son and campaign staffer, told the Daily News.
At least 50 people attended the party, held inside Il Bacco Ristorante in Little Neck, according to the Queens Daily Eagle.
The restaurant’s manager was among the plaintiffs in a summer lawsuit against Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio over the closure of indoor dining.
The holiday event drew rebukes from the governor and mayor.
“Conga lines are not smart,” the governor said during a press conference last week. “Why you would do an unmasked COVID conga line in the middle of a COVID pandemic, whatever your political persuasion, defies logical explanation.”
De Blasio promised a probe of the party.
“Anyone who violates the state rules, we’re going to go deal with, and we have been,” he said last week. “We’ve been giving out really serious fines [of] up to $15,000 to people who organize events or host events. We’ll keep doing that.”
The Whitestone Republican Club voiced a defiant stance.
“There are clearly two camps people have broken into during this challenging time. One that believes that people should be forced into compliance with recommended guidelines under threat of force by official penalty and retaliation,” the group wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “The second believes that people should be responsible to decide for themselves ... We clearly fall into the second camp.
Last month, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a Democrat, and other local power brokers came under criticism for attending an indoor, mask-less birthday party. The gathering drew a warning from the mayor, but no promises of an investigation.
Councilman Joe Borelli (R-S.I.) accused the authorities of using a double standard to monitor parties.
“When it’s Republicans or Orthodox Jews, there must always be some sort of investigation,” he said. “No other underground events in the age of COVID merit government condemnation or criticism, weeks after the fact.”