Livestock shows and rodeos are being shut down across the country, with the list of cancelled events growing every day, due to the concern for public health and safety in the midst of the COVOID-19 outbreak.
Now it’s been reported that four people who tested positive for COVID-19 in Houston visited the same tent at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Barbecue Cookoff last month.
According to officials, the barbecue event held Friday, February 28, was attended by 73,433 people.
Two cases from Brazoria County, a police officer in Montgomery County, and a case from Galveston County all visited the Latino Police Officer’s Association tent, known at the cook-off as the “LPOA Roadkill Cafe,” according to LPOA spokesperson Roy Gaivey, who told the Montgomery Country Police Reporter that he sent a text message to the 18-member group after learning that the Patton Village police officer from Montgomery County had tested positive.
Only identified as a male police officer in his 40s, the Montgomery County first case has a link to a presumptive case reported Friday by Galveston County. In the hours after the Galveston County case was announced, the officer was listed in critical condition, according to health officials.
Officials from the City of Houston and Harris County cited the Montgomery County case as the main reason for closing the HLSR. The event was shut down for the remainder of the season after it was learned that the officer, a man in his 40s, was at the rodeo cook-off on Friday, February 28.
The Montgomery County patient’s results are still pending from the CDC and County Officials report that he was no travel history outside of Texas, but it’s unknown for certain whether he became sick before, during, or after the event.
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