June 16, 2020 | 3:37pm | Updated June 16, 2020 | 5:49pm
A Mayo Clinic worker who stayed indoors for months in Florida to avoid getting the coronavirus says she finally broke quarantine to go to a bar with pals earlier this month — leaving her and 15 of her friends with the contagion.
“The first night we go out — Murphy’s Law, I guess,” Erika Crisp, a 40-year-old health care worker from Jacksonville, told local WJXT TV.
“The only thing we have in common is that one night at that one bar,” Crisp said of herself and her sick pals.
“I think we were careless, and we went out into a public place when we should not have,” she said of the group’s excursion to the popular Lynch’s Irish Pub in Jacksonville Beach on June 6 — a day after most of Florida entered Phase Two of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ start-up plan, which included the reopening of bars.
After several months of properly social distancing and “doing everything the right way,” Crisp said, the freedom of the moment may have gotten the better of her and her pals.
“We were not wearing masks,” she said. “I think we had a whole ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality.
“The state opens back up and said everybody was fine, so we took advantage of that.”
Erika Crisp, a 40-year-old health care worker from Jacksonville, Florida.
WJXT
Miami has put the brakes on moving into the next…
Crisp wrote on her Facebook page June 12, “My COVID Life: Day 5 since onset of symptoms. Since I first had a slight cough on Monday 6/8/20 that is considered my start of symptoms date. Tuesday evening is when I was hit full force with aches, chills, fever, vertigo on top of fatigue & awful cough that had progressed throughout the day. I also had/have no sense of smell & my sinuses are swollen.”
Crisp, who says in her Facebook profile that she works at the Mayo Clinic, told the TV station she has learned her lesson.
“We should be wearing masks. We should be social distancing,” she said. “It was too soon to open everything back up.”
The bar temporarily shut down for a deep cleaning after learning of sick patrons, the outlet said. Seven of its workers have tested positive for the contagion, the report said.
Over the weekend, Florida reported more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, as the state continues to reopen its beaches. Florida hit a record-high number of new daily cases Saturday, with 2,581.
