Louisiana wedding exposes 150 people to COVID-19, health officials say

Published 9:34 pm Tuesday, October 5, 2021

About 150 people were exposed to COVID-19 at a recent wedding, and any who are not vaccinated should quarantine themselves through Saturday, the Louisiana Department of Health said Tuesday.

Everyone who attended the wedding in Abbeville on Sept. 25, including those who don’t show any symptoms and those who are fully vaccinated, should be tested for the disease, the department said.

The department said it has confirmed an outbreak related to the event at L’Eglise, a wedding venue in a restored church.

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“Several people that attended the wedding subsequently developed symptoms and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” it said.

Unvaccinated people should watch for symptoms of COVID-19 while in quarantine, the department said. Those include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congested or runny nose, nausea or vomiting and diarrhea.

The department says exposed unvaccinated people who test negative for COVID-19 during the quarantine period still need to stay in quarantine through Saturday — 14 days after the wedding.

The department lists test sites on its website.

The department reported 1,021 new cases on Tuesday, for a total of 744,651, and 41 new deaths, bringing the total to 14,068. It said 671 patients were hospitalized, 130 of them on ventilators.

Nationwide, the death toll passed 700,000 on Friday.

People who are not fully vaccinated made up 86% of Louisiana’s cases from Sept. 16-22, 82% of deaths between those dates and 82% of current COVID hospitalizations, according to the department.