SOUTH BEND — A recent wedding turned into a COVID-19 “superspreader” that has sickened nurses and other health workers and could be causing a staffing crunch for at least one local hospital, two St. Joseph County health board members say.
The board members referenced the event at a public board meeting Wednesday night to emphasize the need for mask wearing and other safety measures as coronavirus rates, hospitalizations and deaths spike locally. The board oversees the St. Joseph County Health Department.
Board member Dr. Ilana Kirsch, a local obstetrician and gynecologist, said at the meeting that she heard about a “superspreader event involving a lot of nurses at one of the hospitals … that has negatively impacted staffing at that hospital in the unit that it occurred in.”
In an interview Thursday, Kirsch said she heard about the event, a wedding, from a nurse who had knowledge of it, and that the nurses involved were not wearing masks or practicing physical distancing.
Kirsch would not name which hospital was affected but did say it was one of the local hospitals at which she has admitting privileges: Memorial Hospital in South Bend and Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center. Kirsch practices at the independent Family Medicine of South Bend.
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