The Winter Party Festival in Miami made headlines this week after one of the roughly 10,000 attendees tested positive for COVID-19. In an unfortunate update, several other party-goers have also tested positive for the virus.
“We know there are many places people could have been exposed before and after Winter Party as this virus has developed, but we wanted to make this information public as soon as possible,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, the organization behind the festival, said in a statement Monday. “The health and safety of anyone who participates in any Task Force event is of great importance to us.”
Related: WATCH: Trump brags about slashing CDC in damning video
While the event occurred prior to the mass-cancelations of public gatherings, the festival chose to move forward despite heightened risks. Carey told NBC News that organizers “made the most informed decision at the time, following all official guidance available at the time.”
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They took precautions like handing out 10,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, but it’s not hard to imagine the contamination potential of a crowded, sweaty circuit party.
Related: Girl who licked toilet seat in “coronavirus challenge” insists she’s protected because she’s on PrEP
Chris Johnson, the Chief Political & White House reporter for the Washington Blade, spoke with one attendee who reported, “Within my group of friends, 10 or so of us have flu-like symptoms. I’ve chatted with acquaintances who in most cases say that they have many sick friends within their groups as well.”
The LGBTQ Task Force has not specified exactly how many event attendees have tested positive for the virus, though because tests are still inaccessible for so many, their number may not even be accurate.
Gadfeal
How on earth are asymptomatic people NOT in high risk groups able to get tested? Across the US, MDs cannot even get tests for their patients who are showing symptoms? Am I missing something?
Gandalf The Grey
I finally found out on Sunday why Trump & Downlow Pence are preventing testing. A lot of people believe that it is because they didn’t want bad numbers for the re-election campaign. There may be some truth in that. But Trump is bed with a pharmaceutical company that is developing it’s own test that can be patented and be the only used in America… For Profit!
wikidBSTN
Really?? They couldn’t keep their butts indoors and miss one lousy circuit party? The organizers should be in jail. The party goers should be quarantined on an island – let Darwinism have its way with them.
Kanaka4127
You seem fun. Bet you’re the life of every party.
Mr-DJ
wikidBSTN – And was YOUR ASS locked in your house 10 days ago … ??? I didn’t think so.
Gandalf The Grey
I agree with you completely, wikidBSTN!
jmforeman
You are ignoring the fact that at the time of the Winter Party Festival, no city or state in the nation had moved to ban large events, there were only two reported COVID cases in the state of Florida as of Friday, March 6 (the weekend of the festival and both were on the other side of the state), Miami Beach had officially declared itself “open for business” that weekend, and megachurch services, concerts, and theme parks like Disney World went on unimpeded Even Seattle, which was hit earliest and hardest by the epidemic, did not move the bar events over 250 people until after Winter Party had ended. If anyone here failed, it was our government, not those who organized or attended the Winter Party. This harkens back of all the moralizing we endured from other gay people during the AIDS epidemic. Shame on you.
viciouslies
Considering that guys travel from all over to attend this event, by not cancelling the Task Force has not just spread the coronavirus, but has made sure that gay communities all over the country are now host to this rapidly spreading disease. Great work at putting the ENTIRE LGBT community at risk. What a shitty organization.
mountainmaat
Yes. We should organize against them and give them some good ol public shaming!
jmforeman
You are ignoring the fact that at the time of the Winter Party Festival, no city or state in the nation had moved to ban large events, there were only two reported COVID cases in the state of Florida as of Friday, March 6 (the weekend of the festival and both were on the other side of the state), Miami Beach had officially declared itself “open for business” that weekend, and megachurch services, concerts, and theme parks like Disney World went on unimpeded Even Seattle, which was hit earliest and hardest by the epidemic, did not move the bar events over 250 people until after Winter Party had ended. If anyone here failed, it was our government, not those who organized or attended the Winter Party. This harkens back of all the moralizing we endured from other gay people during the AIDS epidemic. Shame on you.
Prax07
They’re idiots, simple as that. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Kangol2
This really was a bad move. I’ve seen all the cute photos of hotties on IG heading there, at the events, and now back and home, and my first thought was, what were you girls thinking!? And then I acknowledge that they weren’t, or were thinking, It won’t be me….
MANSUMM
I still don’t understand how anyone thought this was a good idea these days.
frankcar1965
First AIDS now Corona virus, Queers are gonna wipe us all out.
surfpenis
All those sweaty boys interacting and trying to make their dicks and holes tingle …. *sigh*
CityguyUSA
All we need is another virus that seems to spread faster among the LGTBQs because of what will be made out to be about our promiscuous behavior.
Gandalf The Grey
The National LGBTQ Task Force is the organization behind the festival. I will never have anything to do with this organization. Despite their lofty name, they have failed to protect the LGBTQI+ community. I’ll donate to something more worthy like The Trevor Project.
Den
Lets not forget that two weeks ago when the Winter Party Festival started, and for days after, the official word from the White House was “everything is under control, no need to worry,” “People are going to work, they’re not just sitting around, and they’re getting better,” “No reason for people not to go to rallies and events”.
So don’t excoriate those circuit boys for doing what they do.Those circuit gueens were just listening to our current administration and following their advice. I wonder if the succulent and unapologetically regressive Aaron Schock did his patriotic duty and showed up?
stagehand1
As I have said before, we gays never miss a chance to eat our own. We’ve been so conditioned we don’t miss an opportunity to show self hatred. Mistakes were made. The idiocy of our government is far from blameless. But one group of gays calling out another group of gays isn’t the way to go either.
seaguy
Frankcar1965-your comment seems like it is coming from a homophobic hater. It’s offensive to say the least.
dug415
At the time the Task Force was making their informed decision every music festival in the world had cancelled their event, including Ultra Music Festival in Miami. The only festival that hadn’t cancelled was Winter Party. That’s the only part of their answer I don’t understand. It seems the information that was available was no large gatherings. I hope it is not as bad as it could potentially be.
jmforeman
You are ignoring the fact that at the time of the Winter Party Festival, no city or state in the nation had moved to ban large events, there were only two reported COVID cases in the state of Florida as of Friday, March 6 (the weekend of the festival and both were on the other side of the state), Miami Beach had officially declared itself “open for business” that weekend, and megachurch services, concerts, and theme parks like Disney World went on unimpeded Even Seattle, which was hit earliest and hardest by the epidemic, did not move the bar events over 250 people until after Winter Party had ended. If anyone here failed, it was our government, not those who organized or attended the Winter Party.
BrinLondo
Selfish and stupid.