Dozens of people have been infected and two people have died after a karaoke party in Florida, USA.

Health officials said a COVID-19 outbreak was linked to The Social Club of Palm Coast in Flagler County, Florida.

Officials traced dozens of infections to the event that took place on the evening of August 28th, 2020.

Many of the attendees were said to not be wearing masks and huddling close whilst singing.

Stephen Bickel, medical director at the Flagler health department said: “This is actually a pretty dramatic event. It’s really a tragedy.

“It’s certainly profound ignorance of the risk. The public may not be aware of what a risk this is. I thought they did, but maybe not.

“I know that churches are not having singing in their services because of this kind of stuff. I don’t know if people realize it, but karaoke is as bad or worse, because they do it for a long period of time, you’re in a closed space.”

Studies show that roughly 10 to 20% of the infected cases with coronavirus are responsible for around 80% of infections.

Gloria April, the secretary of the social club in Palm Coast said her staff had tried in vain to usher people to leave on the night of the 28th of August.

“We opened up the big room and tried to have people go into the big room and they didn’t want to go,” Ms April said.

“They wanted to stay in the smaller area.”

People also took their masks off over the course of the evening leading to transmission.

The club was supposed to operate at 50 percent capacity on the night, and attendees were asked to wear masks and practice social distancing but none of these were adhered to according to reports.

The outbreak killed a 69-year-old woman on August 31 and a 74-year-old man on September 13, both of whom died of COVID-19-related infections linked to events.

Share on your Social Networks