How two funerals helped turn one small Georgia city into a hotspot for coronavirus?

Albany, Georgia (CNN, April 2, 2020):  When a retired janitor suddenly died in southern Georgia, crowds of relatives and friends flocked to a local funeral home and mourned together. Within weeks, their city was overrun by coronavirus cases.

That cluster of coronavirus cases was linked to the funerals of 64-year-old Andrew J. Mitchell and another man, held in late February and early March, Dougherty County Council Chairman Chris Cohilas said. Albany, a city of roughly 75,000 people -- as well as Cohilas' county, where Albany is based -- is the latest example of how the virus has started disrupting smaller, more rural areas as much as the country's larger, urban cities.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were at least 490 confirmed coronavirus cases reported in Dougherty County and at least 29 coronavirus-related deaths, the Georgia Department of Public Health said.

About 20 people who attended at least one of the funerals contracted the virus, said Scott Steiner, the chief executive officer of Phoebe Putney Health System, which has its biggest hospital in Albany.

"It took one person, whoever that was, and there was no intent," Steiner told CNN. "It shows this virus can quickly spread."

A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Health acknowledged the virus spread among "individuals who attended a number of events in Albany" but said it's unclear "where or with whom it all started."

'It was like a domino effect'

Emell Murray discovered her long-time companion, Andrew J. Mitchell, unconscious in the living room of their home on February 24. The family said they suspect he had a heart attack and died.

After his passing, their siblings, nephews, nieces and friends traveled to Albany to pay their respects at his funeral service, and later spent the afternoon at Murray and Mitchell's home.

A couple of days later, Murray, 75, was hospitalized. She had a fever and her blood pressure skyrocketed.

"We didn't know what was wrong with her," Alice Bell, Murray's daughter, told CNN.

Murray spent much of March at the hospital. In between visits, doctors informed her she had tested positive for coronavirus.

But she wasn't the only one.

Several of the couple's relatives contracted the virus, Bell said. The pastor who delivered Mitchell's eulogy, she said, has since died of coronavirus complications. Steiner, the hospital system CEO, confirmed that.

"It was like a domino effect," Bell said.

The Martin Luther King Memorial Chapel LLC, which hosted the respective funerals on February 29 and March 7, said health department officials notified them on March 13 about a potential exposure to the virus involving people who were present at the events.

The AJC first reported the funerals as the source of the city's outbreak..............................

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/us/albany-georgia-coronavirus/index.html