An Ohio wedding held last month appears to have been a COVID-19 super spreader event.
What We Know:
- The Ohio wedding welcomed 83 guests. Held October 31st, 32 of the 83 guests have tested positive, including the newlyweds and 3 of their grandparents. The newlyweds had to cut their North Carolina honeymoon short due to the virus.
- Newlyweds Anthony and Mikayla Bishop spoke to WLWT about the event. They cautioned other couples hoping to get married during the pandemic. “Weddings are definitely scary right now. I didn’t think that almost half of our wedding guests were gonna get sick,” Mikayla said. “You’re in the moment. You’re having fun. You don’t think about COVID anymore,” she added.
- The couple felt tremendous guilt for holding the event. They especially feel for their grandparents, of which two of the three went to the emergency room for their symptoms.
- The couple cut their wedding guest list from 200 to 85 and provided face masks and hand sanitizer, but very few guests took these precautions. The grandparents were the only ones who wore masks and were socially distanced yet still contracted the virus.
- Mikayla was startled when she was going down the aisle. “My big moment honestly was right when the ceremony started, and the doors opened, and both my parents walked me down the aisle. The first thing I see is I see everyone’s face. And that’s when I realized, wow. Nobody’s wearing a mask,” she told WLWT. “I’m walking down the aisle. We can’t do anything now.” She believes the dance floor may have been what incited the cases.
The wedding season will start back up in the spring. It is unknown how safe weddings will be at that time. The Ohio newlyweds serve as an example of the dangers of a covid wedding.
