A small Georgia city is facing hundreds of coronavirus cases after residents flocked to a beloved janitor's funeral
Mic Smith/AP
Georgia's Dougherty County has reported 490 confirmed cases of COVID-19, that all emerged after two funerals were held in the town of Albany in February and March.
Scott Steiner, the chief executive officer of Albany's biggest hospital, Phoebe Putney Health System, told CNN that about 20 of the confirmed cases came from people who attended a funeral.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp cited Albany as one of the reasons the state needed to go under a shelter-in-place order.
A small city in Georgia is facing hundreds of COVID-19 cases, and its spread has been linked to two funerals held in February and March.
Georgia's Dougherty County, which is home to Albany, a town of 75,000 people, has 490 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and at least 29 residents have died from the virus, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Scott Steiner, the chief executive officer of Albany's biggest hospital, Phoebe Putney Health System, told CNN that the outbreak began after relatives and friends gathered at a funeral for 64-year-old Andrew J. Mitchell, and the funeral for another unnamed man the following month.
About 20 of the confirmed cases came from people who attended a funeral, Steiner said.
"It took one person, whoever that was, and there was no intent," he told CNN. "It shows this virus can quickly spread."
A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Health told CNN that it is unclear "where or with whom" the clustered outbreak began, but did say it spread among "individuals who attended a number of events in Albany."
The first of two funerals was for Mitchell, a retired janitor who was one of 10 siblings. According to The New York Times, 200 people attended his funeral and memorial.
His sister, Dorothy Johnson, told The Times she has no idea who may have spread the virus.
Six of her siblings and more than a dozen other relatives are among Dougherty County's 490 coronavirus cases.
Steiner said the first person to report feeling ill was a 67-year-old man who had traveled from Atlanta to attend one of the funerals.
"The next day is when we began seeing people coming to our emergency room who were sick," Steiner told CNN. "Two the first day, six the next day, eight the next day, and it just began to cascade from that point."
The Martin Luther King Memorial Chapel LLC, which hosted Mitchell's funeral as well as another funeral in March, informed visitors of the coronavirus outbreak on March 13.
"Although we have been identified as a common factor in the tracking of the Covid-19 in Albany, know that we are operating within all regulatory safety or health guidelines," the funeral home directors wrote in a Facebook post. "We know that there is growing concern across the city. We are taking extra precautions to protect you, our staff and the communities we serve."
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp spoke of Albany during a press conference on Wednesday, citing it as one of the reasons he decided a statewide shelter-in-place was necessary.
"I believe there was funeral service weeks ago where an infected person went, and it created this whole epicenter which just exploded down there," Kemp said, according to FOX 5 Atlanta, adding: "That's one of the reasons we have been begging people to not have — and I know it's a hard thing — religious services."
The Georgia Department of Health sent an epidemiology team to Albany to investigate what happened, and the Georgia National Guard has dispatched two medical teams to help those who are infected.
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