Tracing COVID to bars remains a challenge
Transient nature of customers make tracking difficult
Images of crowded bars have flooded social media and dozens of eating and drinking establishments across Ohio have been cited for violating coronavirus restrictions.
Meanwhile, cases of COVID-19 have spiked in the Buckeye State, averaging well over 1,500 cases per day over the past three weeks, and hitting a record high of 2,425 reported cases on Thursday.
But it remains unclear just how much bars and restaurants have contributed to the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 5,000 Ohioans.
The transient nature of bar and restaurant customers, who may stay for a few hours before heading to another establishment during the time of potential infection, make tracing outbreaks and infections difficult, public health experts said.
To add to the uncertainty, local health departments often lack necessary resources, and a significant portion of Ohio's population has refused to work with contact tracers.
In Cincinnati, for example, con
tact tracers found that 9% of people who tested positive for the virus recently visited a bar, and 10% recently visited a restaurant.
Tracers inquire about an infected person's whereabouts during the two weeks prior to their diagnosis, but "it's really hard to say where transmission has occurred, unless potentially there's an outbreak within that organization," said Dr. Maryse
Amin, supervising epidemiologist for Cincinnati's Health Department.
Columbus Public Health has identified 54 outbreaks or clusters since the pandemic began in March, but only conclusively linked one of them to a bar or restaurant.
The University of Dayton had an outbreak of more than 1,000 cases after students returned to campus this fall, and Dan Suffoletto, public information officer for the Dayton & Montgomery County Health Department, said some of those cases were no doubt linked to bar visits.
“But when you have that many people it's hard to determine how it's exactly transmitted,” he said. “Especially if they are going between private homes and bars.”
The virus has a 14-day incubation period, and definitively tracing the infection in that time is all but impossible if an infected person visited multiple crowded places, Suffoletto said.
In rare cases, several people who test positive for the virus report being at the same event, and it stands to reason that event was the source