How often have you read, here and elsewhere, that an especial problem with group assemblies is that Covid-19 can transmit asymptomatically? That your sweet Auntie Grizelda can contract the sickness at church or someplace else and carry it to others before she even suspects that she’s infected.
What do you know? Maine has documented an instance of exactly that.
The number of COVID-19 cases connected to a wedding reception in Millinocket continues to climb, with state health officials saying on Saturday that they could trace 53 confirmed cases of coronavirus to the reception. That’s up from 32 confirmed cases on Friday.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday that investigators identified secondary and tertiary transmission of the virus, which means that it has spread to people who did not attend the Aug. 7 wedding reception but had close contact with individuals who were present at the event (secondary cases) and close contacts of the secondary cases.
[ … ] A woman who did not attend the reception died on Friday after contracting COVID-19 from a person who did attend the event …
The unhappy truth is that there are a lot of people for whom this pandemic won’t be real until they are themselves sick, or somebody they know has died; until then it will be no more than a troublesome “hoax.” There is really no self-defense but to put such people out of your life.