"We weren't able to identify any single event linked to cases involved in the cluster," Siddle said in an email. "We weren't able to identify any single event linked to cases involved in the cluster," said Katherine Siddle, a Broad Institute research scientist and one of the co-lead authors on the preprint. The Fourth of July weekend saw Provincetown’s bars, restaurants, dance halls and indoor and outdoor venues packed with visitors from across the country.Īnalysis in the study found more than 40 sources of delta variant among the 467 individuals whose genomic and epidemiological data were analyzed - with one source, whether an individual or small group - causing 83% of the infections studied. Outbreak likely emerged due to out-of-state visitors Instead, genomic and epidemiological data point to “one individual affecting others at multiple locations, or several individuals with the same virus … transmitting independently,” said the report, which received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study said there is no evidence that a single exposure site caused a super spreader event. "Within a week we offered large-scale testing." "It was a very effective early alert system," Cyr said. "The data also confirm for those people who are vaccinated COVID-19 is a much different virus than for those who are unvaccinated."Ĭyr also credited Outer Cape Health Services for alerting public health officials and political leaders about an increased number of patients with respiratory symptoms. "Provincetown's response to the cluster truly was effective," said state Sen. 31, when it was downgraded to an advisory. We had people calling from out of town and self-reporting.”Ĭontainment efforts included Provincetown municipal officials putting an indoor masking mandate into effect July 25 until Aug. The majority of patients were very cooperative. “Everybody worked really hard to track people down. “We wanted people to stay home,” Arvidson said. The Cape Cod AIDS Support Group delivered food and thermometers and picked up prescriptions. Provincetown residents and visitors who were still in town were informed of isolation protocols and also given a list of resources that could help them isolate, Arvidson said. “The basic mitigation stuff we’ve been talking about all along really worked.” “It was really good old-fashioned shoe leather public health work that prevented this from becoming a super spreader event,” said Vaira Harik, deputy director of Barnstable County’s department of human services. Provincetown will be offering free COVID-19 testing from Wednesday through Monday at the Veterans Memorial Community Center on Mayflower Street.A preprint report by contributors including the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard attributed the containment to “high rates of vaccination and the swift public health response,” including mobile testing, an indoor masking mandate and extensive outreach campaign.īarnstable County officials, who are listed as contributors on the report, said contact tracing by county public health nurse Deirdre Arvidson and her associate Theresa Covell also played a role. "By getting vaccinated, you have fulfilled your biggest public health responsibility and you are allowed to go to crowded bars and nightclubs without a mask," she said. Still, she and others say getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is our best existing method of protection. "So if you are risk-averse and you really do not want to get COVID-19, don't even want to get a mild case of COVID-19, you really don't want to take that tiny really tiny risk… Then you shouldn't be going to crowded places without a mask," she explained.ĭoron says she will be keeping a close eye on the Provincetown cluster and looking for more information to come out as more people continue to get tested. "It has always been a risk that a vaccinated person in a crowded situation, especially with a highly transmissible variant circulating, could get infected," said Dr. So far in the Provincetown cluster, most infected people have reported mild symptoms. Still, the vaccine will likely prevent severe infection, hospitalization, and death, experts say. While our existing vaccines do prevent the majority of COVID-19 infections, there is always the possibility of being infected.
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