BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The coronavirus... nobody wants it.
So to inform the public, Central District Health recently named nine downtown Boise bars as incidental spots for potential coronavirus exposure.
"People just need to know that one of the reasons we’ve done this is for this very reason: So we can see people who could’ve been at risk and identify that, because there could be a lot of people that didn’t know that the virus was at those locations. And, they could potentially have been exposed," said Brandon Atkins, Central District Health program manager.
CDH says it traced more than 30 cases to Boise bars and naming them is important to inform the public that they may have been exposed.
"[We wanted to] make sure that they are taking extra precautions now because it could continue to spread to other locations for those individuals who were there at those particular locations," Atkins said.
As you can imagine some of the bar owners are not happy about the situation.
Jason Kovac, owner of Tom Grainey's and three other Boise bars released a statement on Wednesday.
“Central District Health cherry-picked a handful of bars to blame. The people who have recently tested positive could have contracted the virus from any restaurant, grocery store, rally, workplace, car ride, family dinner or social gathering,” said Jason Kovac, owner of two establishments listed in the Central District Health release. “For weeks people have been testing positive and no business or venue has been named until now. Why are we being singled out? This is a direct attack on 6th and Main.”
Central District Health says it's not singling out any businesses and it wants to clear the air.
"One of the things we don’t see frequently is, 'hey I was at Fred Meyer talking with my friend for half an hour when we ran into each other in the aisle and sat and talked to each other and talked about the groceries we were buying.' There’s a difference in the socialization," Atkins said.
Central District Health says pinpointing general community spread at stores, parks or other gathering places is more difficult to trace when there are cases.
"They can’t specify and say hey, 'this is where I was and there were ten other people identified who were there at that same date at that same time and they’re all testing positive now also,'" Atkins said.
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