Over a dozen people attending a cat's birthday party in a Chilean coastal town have been diagnosed with COVID-19 after having their coronavirus cake and eating it too.
Yeah, that's the ticket, officer, I was at a cat's birthday party and NOT breaking public health bylaws! So say up to six people from Santo Domingo, a small seaside town in central Chile, after testing positive for COVID-19 in the wake of what's being called a bizarre mini-super-spreader event.
To date, a total of 15 party attendees have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus although on the bright side, the cat whose birthday was ostensibly being celebrated is as healthy as a horse. The accompanying images are NOT of the Chilean kitty, by the way, but feature one-year-old “Herbie” who was feted by his loving owner Jessica Fiess-Hill and party guests in May of 2011.
“When I knew about this I said 'it’s a joke',” according to an official statement by Francisco Álvarez, the representative of the Ministry of Health in the Valparaíso region. “Probably they said that to conceal something else but it was exactly that.”
“Even though it sounds unbelievable and almost fiction, these things happen in our country,” added Álvarez in an interview broadcast by Radio Bío Bío. “There is no doubt people will come up with any excuse to get together.” Word up to potential pet party-ers: file this excuse away with “the dog ate my homework” and while you're at it, mask-up – and your little cat too! (via Emilio Lara of biobiochile.cl)
