The city had begun breathing easy, life once more pulsating in its streets. Museums and art galleries reopened, gyms welcomed back regulars, baseball and soccer leagues kicked off. Traffic choked thoroughfares, and schools readied classrooms to greet students for the first time in months.
For 18 days in a row, this metropolis of nearly 10 million reported zero cases of community transmissions of the novel coronavirus. It seemed, even in these uncertain times, that danger had receded in a nation praised for its handling of the pandemic.
Then, a 29-year-old man who’d gone clubbing over a holiday weekend came down with COVID-19, shattering the tenuous sense of normality and setting off a frenzied search for thousands who’d been in the clubs and bars he visited.
As of Tuesday, more than 100 people had tested positive for the virus linked to a cluster stemming from the popular nightlife district of Itaewon. Co-workers and family members of clubgoers have tested positive, including an 84-year-old woman who’d dined with a grandson. The city recoiled: More than 2,000 establishments were ordered to shut down, office buildings where the infected worked were closed, and start dates for schools were, once again, pushed back…
Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times here: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-12/did-club-goers-put-an-entire-city-at-risk-for-a-night-of-dancing-outbreak-triggers-blame-anger
