Jose Velasquez, a 79-year-old father from Bexar County, Texas, tested positive for the coronavirus on March 26 and died on April 17. During those weeks, the staff at the nursing home where he lived assured his family that he showed no symptoms of Covid-19 and, according to a lawsuit filed by his children, failed to ensure that he received proper medical care. The staff did not transfer him to a hospital as he deteriorated or even warn his family that he was sick, according to the suit. Mr. Velasquezs family says that just hours before he died, the staff at the home reported he was doing fine.
The facility had a bad safety record, according to the lawsuit, was chronically understaffed, had received citations for failing to carry out basic infection-control programs and, in the months after the coronavirus erupted, its operators did not heed state guidelines for keeping the virus in check. At least 18 residents and one staff member have died from the virus at the nursing home more than at any other nursing home in San Antonio, according to an analysis by The New York Times; other homes owned by the same company have lost at least 43 more people.
Thats not surprising. Around 40 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths in the United States have been among the staff and residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities totaling some 68,000 people.
Those deaths were not inevitable. The novel coronavirus is adept at spreading in congregant living facilities, and older people face an increased risk of contracting and dying from it. But most of the nations nursing homes had months of warning about the coming threat: One of the first coronavirus outbreaks in the country was in a nursing home near Seattle, making it clear that such facilities ought to prepare.
Its no mystery how. Nursing homes that have managed to contain the virus have done so by employing basic measures such as using personal protective equipment, routinely testing employees and residents and bringing on extra workers. Those successes make clear that many, if not most, of those 68,000 lives could have been spared with careful planning and effective leadership.
To be clear, responsibility for the nations disastrous coronavirus response rests largely with the federal government which left states, cities and institutions scrambling to set social distancing policies, secure equipment and effectively test and trace enough people to stop the virus from spreading. But in nursing homes, those broader failures have been compounded by several long-brewing problems of the industrys own making.
Some 70 percent of Americas long-term care facilities are run by for-profit companies, including private investment firms. Those companies have squeezed profits out of these facilities by forcing them to skimp on care. As a result, per-patient staffing hours have fallen and staff quality has suffered. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that almost half of American nursing homes routinely violate infection-control standards, including those involving the isolation of sick residents, and a ProPublica investigation found that roughly 43 percent of such facilities did not have a legally mandated emergency response plan at the start of this pandemic.
Rather than check these practices with a strong hand or a watchful eye, the Trump administration has granted the long-term care industry several concessions in recent years: smaller fines, potentially lower tax bills and relaxed training requirements for nursing home workers. It has also proposed rolling back infection-control rules meant to keep pathogens like the coronavirus under control.
Since the start of the pandemic, the industry has received billions of dollars in emergency aid hundreds of thousands of which has gone to companies with terrible safety records. Rather than focus on improving those records, operators of private nursing homes have deployed an army of lobbyists to press for even more funding and favorable policies.
Among the most alarming of those policies is total immunity from wrongful death and other malpractice lawsuits including those pertaining to the coronavirus from 2019 through at least 2024. Republican lawmakers and industry trade groups have argued that such protections are necessary to prevent struggling homes from collapsing under the weight of litigation. But theres a much better way to protect nursing homes from wrongful death lawsuits: help them protect patients from dying needlessly.
In a just world, the long-term care industry would right now face more accountability, not less. Eric Dreiband, an assistant U.S. attorney general, was correct when he spoke of the governments duty to ensure that nursing home residents are adequately cared for with dignity and respect and not unnecessarily put at risk. But the Justice Departments investigation into whether states violated nursing home residents rights by admitting Covid-19 patients into state-run homes from hospitals is not the best way to fulfill that duty. Such transfers were almost certainly unwise, but research continues to show that asymptomatic staff members not incoming patients were the driving force behind nursing home outbreaks.
Instead, federal officials ought to increase financial oversight of the industry, in which many businesses have been known to run afoul of the law for instance, by bilking Medicare, soliciting kickbacks and illegally shielding assets from bankruptcy filings. Investigations by ProPublica and other news outlets have found that some facilities that struck lucrative deals to take on residents who tested positive for the coronavirus did not in turn ramp up their services accordingly.
Every effort should be made to ensure that the bulk of the money that the government puts into this industry goes to patient care, not providers pockets. An investigation started by the House of Representatives into the nations largest for-profit homes is a meaningful step in this direction. The Justice Department should follow suit.
For another thing, testing mandates and rules about personal protective equipment need to be backed up with financial and logistical support. Facilities and municipalities are still bidding against one another for personal protective equipment, and for most of the past six months long-term care facilities have had no higher prioritization for testing than an average person.
The federal governments attempts to address these problems have been belated and clumsy: unusable gloves and gowns, a testing initiative that didnt begin until midsummer and that remains far too meager, and unenforceable mandates. Before you can hold facilities to testing requirements or mandate the use of personal protective equipment, you have to ensure that they can actually access those things, said David Grabowski, a health care policy expert at Harvard Medical School.
The only way to prevent the coronavirus from racing through nursing homes is to nationalize the supply chain for these essential tools, and then ensure that they are readily available to the institutions that need them most.
Nursing home staffing shortages also need to be addressed. As Mr. Grabowski and others have noted, certified nursing assistants, who make up the bulk of nursing home workers, have one of the most dangerous jobs in America right now. Their work is more deadly than logging or deep sea fishing more than 700 nursing home workers have died from the coronavirus so far and most earn minimum wage or close to it. As certified nursing assistants get sick or quit, staff shortages are approaching crisis levels.
In the near term, lawmakers should provide for hazard pay for nursing home workers in the next relief package and should require all nursing homes to enact non-punitive sick-leave policies so that workers dont infect colleagues or residents.
In the longer term, federal officials need to consider revising Medicaid reimbursement rates for long-term care so they support higher than minimum-wage salaries, and shifting reimbursement policies so at least some long-term care can be reimbursed with Medicare dollars.
Lawmakers and nursing home operators also would do well to consider a national initiative, perhaps involving student volunteers and internship programs, to recruit future workers to nursing home care. That work, which can be deeply rewarding, will remain urgently needed long after this crisis passes.
India will supply coronavirus vaccines to the world will its people benefit? Nature.com
Every few weeks, Caryn Cardello and her partner contemplate bringing their son back to day care.
They are stressed and overwhelmed with parenting alone after months of shelter-in-place, and they want their 2-year-old to have the opportunity for normal social development.
But when the San Francisco couple asked their pediatrician about the coronavirus risks, the doctor did not give a clear recommendation.
We just wanted someone to tell us what the risk was, Cardello said. We dont know what the hell to do.
Like Cardello, most Bay Area parents are confused, scared and stressed about the lack of clarity surrounding the risk of coronavirus transmission in day care facilities.
More than 320 coronavirus cases associated with day care facilities have been confirmed in the Bay Area, according to Sept. 3 data from the California Department of Social Services. More than 6,000 day care providers are open in the region, meaning that on average, there have been about five cases reported for every 100 facilities.
But major unknowns remain. Because the state data does not indicate exactly how many children and staff are associated with each day care facility, there appears to be no way to calculate the rate of coronavirus transmission. Without that figure, it is impossible to compare the risk in a child care facility with the overall rate of transmission.
The department does not make public health determinations as to the risk associated with the number or percentage of child-care related (coronavirus) cases, wrote Scott Murray, a spokesperson for the department, in an email. Instead, the department reports the data to help parents and caregivers make informed decisions, he added.
The state data do not necessarily reflect transmission within the centers themselves, but rather the reported total of cases associated with children, parents, staff members and other adults at day care facilities or within childrens families, multiple experts said.
Some lower-income and essential-worker parents have had no choice but to enroll their children in day care. Some work-from-home parents have decided the risk is low enough to be worth the benefits. And countless others like Cardello, especially work-from-home mothers, are overwhelmed by the competing demands of their jobs, children and personal lives but remain too scared to choose day care.
They all want to know: Is it safe?
Most experts agree that the risk of coronavirus transmission is comparatively low for children old enough for day care, and many researchers and health care providers with access to the most recent information have decided to send their own children back to day care.
But the answer to that question is mostly a personal decision, experts and day care providers agreed.
In San Francisco, day care facilities are about as safe as they can be, said Gina Fromer, the chief executive officer of the Childrens Council of San Francisco, a nonprofit that supports child care providers and helps parents find care. She feels confident that the state and county safety rules greatly minimize any transmission risk.
The number of affected child care sites is still relatively small, Fromer said.
Kate Shaheed, the director of St. Vincents Day Home, one of Oaklands oldest day care providers, agreed. Despite hosting more than 100 children, St. Vincents has not experienced any coronavirus cases.
But its a choice. Its a hard choice, Fromer said about parents deciding whether to enroll their kids in day care. There is some risk there, and we just cannot say there is not, she added.
About 30 of the cases associated with day care facilities in the Bay Area were reported in the last two weeks, according to the data.
Santa Clara County tops the list of Bay Area counties with 94 confirmed cases at child care facilities, an average of five cases per 100 facilities, and Alameda follows with 49 and an average of three cases for every 100 facilities, according to state data released Sept. 3.
In Santa Clara County, at least 30% of the confirmed cases were among children as of Aug. 30. The county is one of the few in the region with enough positive tests among children (29 total as of Aug. 30 data) to report them without violating health privacy guidelines.
I do think its helpful to know the number of cases that have been connected to child care, said Lea Austin, the director for the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. But what the numbers dont tell us is whether any of these cases have actually been transmitted in a child care facility.
Californias statistics indicate that parents and staff make up about 80% of the states child care-related infections, according to Sohil Sud, an associate professor of pediatrics at UCSF. For day care-aged children, the evidence indicates that coronavirus transmission among these children and from children to adults is substantially less frequent than transmission between adults, he added.
Children might just be asymptomatic more frequently than adults, but with frequent testing, we havent seen that children are as likely to get infected as adults, said Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics specializing in pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford, about her own research currently under way.
A typical story of transmission might be something like an aunt with COVID-19, who gives it to a parent, who gives it to their child, who happens to be in child care, Sud said.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that described limited coronavirus transmission in child care facilities in Rhode Island corroborates this evidence, especially when combined with several recent studies conducted internationally, Sud added.
But of course, low risk is not zero risk, he added. He chose to allow his preschool-aged daughter to return to her school in June.
Overall, it appears that young children in particular are less likely to be affected, Maldonado said.
Many of Maldonados colleagues have returned their children to day care, she said.
Because of the constantly shifting science, day care centers have to rely on parents to carefully follow coronavirus prevention guidelines, Shaheed said.
I think its really working because our parents are very very serious about not getting ill, she added. Its a community trust.
At the Oakland facility, children are kept in stable groups with the same caretakers and same children every day; outdoor play areas are fenced off to allow each group to play safely outside; adults wear masks at all times; and areas are cleaned regularly throughout the day, among many other prevention measures, Shaheed said.
Some parents have expressed confusion and frustration that day care centers and other child care activities are allowed to remain open, but schools cannot.
Its almost not fair to compare child care and K-12, Shaheed said. While many day care centers, which are mostly private, cut capacity in half in order to reopen, such an option is far more difficult for public schools, which must serve all enrolled students.
And the science about coronavirus transmission among children past pre-kindergarten age is much murkier and indicates that older kids could pose higher coronavirus risks, she added.
To compensate for closed schools, some day care centers have begun to accept children ages five to eight for the first time, if they are siblings of younger enrollees, Fromer said. By accepting older siblings, some day care facilities can create more stable child care bubbles, because a group of four children from two families poses a lower transmission risk than four children from four different families, she added.
Its about education, and about getting beyond the fear and looking at the data, Fromer said. Parents can make informed decisions about their childs safety if they visit the day care they are considering and make sure they feel confident about their coronavirus protection procedures.
Ask the questions, she said. Get the data.
Cardello is still asking questions. For now she has decided to keep her child at home until she feels more certain about the mixed signals. There are just too many unknowns, she said.
Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anna_c_kramer
TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reportsas of 10:00 a.m., on September 5, 2020, there have been 453,285 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 11,289 total cases and 243 deaths.
CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (34), Berkeley (822), Boone(152), Braxton (9), Brooke (99), Cabell (577), Calhoun (15), Clay (29),Doddridge (11), Fayette (398), Gilmer (20), Grant (143), Greenbrier (106),Hampshire (92), Hancock (125), Hardy (75), Harrison (296), Jackson (210),Jefferson (386), Kanawha (1,650), Lewis (36), Lincoln (125), Logan (516),Marion (228), Marshall (133), Mason (119), McDowell (74), Mercer (344), Mineral(146), Mingo (272), Monongalia (1,342), Monroe (133), Morgan (40), Nicholas(57), Ohio (294), Pendleton (45), Pleasants (15), Pocahontas (45), Preston (141),Putnam (338), Raleigh (389), Randolph (227), Ritchie (6), Roane (36), Summers(21), Taylor (109), Tucker (11), Tyler (15), Upshur (46), Wayne (285), Webster(7), Wetzel (45), Wirt (8), Wood (321), Wyoming (71).
Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the localhealth department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain countymay not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual inquestion may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Hancockand Mason counties in this report.
Pleasevisit the dashboard located at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.
HILO, Hawaii (KHON2) A family linked to a growing coronavirus cluster on the Big Island is making an emotional plea to the public.
[Hawaii news on the goLISTEN to KHON 2GO weekday mornings at 7:30 a.m.]
Mary Benevides was in shock when she found out her 77-year-old father Walter Santos Sr. had COVID-19. She knew it was possible, but hoped he wouldnt get it.
Just take it seriously if you love your family. If you love anybody within your community, take it seriously, said Benevides.
She said its been like an emotional roller-coaster. She and her siblings have been grappling with the uncertainty brought on by the virus, praying their father will pull through. Her message to othersCOVID-19 is very real.
Santos is one of the 54 residents and 18 staff at the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home with the virus.
Cases inside the home exploded after an asyptomatic staff member tested positive in late August.
Benevides said her father has a fever, body aches and loss of appetite, but nothing too serious, so far.
He is isolated right now and semi sedated. Hes on IV fluids to keep him as nourished and as strong as they can. Right now he doesnt have an appetite so they are monitoring that.
She believes that Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home is doing all they can for her father and to prevent further spread.
But she still worries.
Her father has underlying health conditions and had suffered a stroke last year. She is well aware of what could happen and knowing that five residents from the home have already died from COVID-19, makes her even more anxious.
New tests show that a sixth person previously reported to have died from coronavirus, did not have it.
To know that there are people within that facility that my dad knew that he wont get to see again and they wont get to see their families, its really hard. I just I think, Im trying to pray that I dont get the phone call that my dad is one of them, Benevides said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Benevides is urging everyone to take the virus seriouslypractice social distancing and wear a mask.
Its not that hard to do your part and to be a good part of it. Its uncomfortable, but its more uncomfortable to lose somebody you love.
(CNN) Just a day after marking the significant milestone of 100 days without local coronavirus transmission, the virus has reared its head once again in Thailand.
News of a fresh infection came as the Thai government faces growing pressure from businesses to reopen borders to international tourists, as months of travel restrictions have devastated its heavily tourism-dependent economy.
The latest case was revealed to be a 37-year-old man who was arrested in Bangkok on drugs charges and tested positive after arriving at a Bangkok correctional center. Health officials say that he had no recent travel history and that his quarantine cellmates had all tested negative.
"This case is a local transmission case after over 100 days were passed with no report of locally transmitted infection," Dr. Suwannachai Wattanayincharoen, director of Thailand's Disease Control Department, told a press conference on Thursday.
Until the announcement, the Southeast Asian country has not recorded any local infections since late May. It is still finding coronavirus cases in overseas arrivals, who are subjected to a mandatory 14-day quarantine period. Patients remain in quarantine until they've recovered.
So far, the country of 70 million people has a caseload of just 3,427, with 58 deaths. More than 28% of the reported infections are overseas cases, according to the Health Ministry.
People donning facemasks walk along Khao San Road, a popular area for tourists in Bangkok, Thailand on March 6, 2020.
JACK TAYLOR/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
The country had first refrained from banning Chinese tourists, but in late March, when its caseload surged close to 1,000, the Thai government declared a state of emergency and banned all non-resident foreigners from entering.
The border closure has helped protect the country while the virus rages across the world, but it has also dealt a huge blow to its tourist sector, which according to the World Bank normally contributes close to 15% of Thailand's GDP.
In June, the Tourism Council of Thailand said it expected to see an estimated 8 million foreign tourists this year, an 80% drop from last year's record number of 39.8 million.
"We hope that we can find ways to bring back tourists in the future. Bringing tourists back is one of the key factors to revive the Thai economy in the remaining part of this year and next year as well," said Don Nakornthab, Senior Director of Economic and Policy Department at the Bank of Thailand.
"But we have to do it carefully, because if the second wave happens, especially as a result from opening up for tourists, it will put Thailand into trouble again," he said at a press conference Monday.
"Safe and Sealed"
"I have asked the prime minister for approval to set October 1 as the date to allow (inbound) tourists to enter," he said. "I also have requested to use Phuket as a pilot model ... and have received approval from the Center for Economic Situation Administration."
If successful, the project will be expanded to include other destinations.
In the beginning, tourists will be permitted to fly into Phuket -- Thailand's largest island -- and will need to quarantine in a designated resort for 14 days.
Phiphat cited popular Patong Beach as an example of an area where this could work. Special one-kilometer zones consisting of three-to-four resorts could be set up there, allowing quarantined tourists to spend time on the beach -- so long as they stay in their designated area.
Travelers will need to get tested for Covid-19 at the beginning and end of their quarantine period. Then, they will be free to travel on the island.
But the minister says tourists who wish to travel beyond Phuket will have to stay in quarantine for an additional seven days and will have a third Covid-19 test at the end of that 21-day quarantine period.
Hotel staff who work in these designated zones will not be permitted to leave without first going into quarantine and will be tested regularly for Covid-19 as well to prevent the spread of the virus.
Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, told CNN Travel last month the plan had been approved by the government and the next step involves holding a public hearing to get approval from local residents -- which is expected to take place in early September.
As October draws closer, however, Yuthasak said on Thursday that Phuket might not be able to receive tourists on October 1 as planned.
"There is still a lot to be done. The prime minister has just said that we have to make preparations," he said.
Vichit Prakobgosol, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said most members of the association strongly support the program and hope to see tourists returning to Thailand in the last quarter of the year.
"This must be done urgently, (otherwise) Thailand will really be in deep trouble. There will be even more people losing their jobs," he said.
Balancing risks
While the tourism and hospitality sectors are keen to reopen borders, many Thai residents remain concerned about the potential health risk.
According to a poll conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration in July, over 55% of the 1,251 people surveyed across Thailand were against a proposed "medical and wellness" program, which would open the country to foreigners who test negative for Covid-19 for medical treatment.
Thais don't need to look far for a cautionary example of how easily the virus can resurface in countries where it has seemingly been eliminated.
In June, Thailand proposed the idea of a "travel bubble" with select countries where infection numbers were kept low. The plan would have allowed travelers to move between those destinations without having to go through quarantine.
However, the proposal was shelved after new waves of infections hit multiple potential destinations under Thailand's consideration, including Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong.
Yuthasak told CNN on Thursday that the plan hasn't been revived. "We are not looking at that option for now," he said.
CNN's Karla Cripps contributed to this report.
The Trump administration and Congress have agreed to pass a bill to avoid a government shutdown without tying funding to separate measures such as coronavirus relief, Vice President Mike Pencesaid Friday.
Approving a continuing resolution, which would temporarily set federal spending at current levels, would not inject the heated politics of pandemic aid into efforts to keep the government running.
"Now, we can focus just on another relief bill, and we're continuing to do that in good faith," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."
Government funding will lapse if Congress does not pass legislation before the end of the month. Speculation had grown that congressional leaders could try to include coronavirus relief measures in a spending package as a way to gain leverage in stimulus negotiations that have barely moved forward since they fell apart last month.
US Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 7, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Pence's comments Friday indicated the stalemate over how much money to put into boosting the economy could linger. Democrats have pushed the Trump administration to increase the price tag on their stimulus offer to at least $2.2 trillion from about $1.3 trillion. The White House has not yet budged.
Pence criticized Democrats over perhaps the largest remaining sticking point in talks. Democratic leaders want more than $900 billion in new aid to cash-crunched state and local governments, while the Trump administration has offered $150 billion.
"We're not going to allow Democrats in Congress to use a coronavirus relief bill to bail out poorly run Democratic states," the vice president said.
The bipartisan National Governors Association has asked for at least $500 billion more in state and municipal aid. Governments have warned of possible cuts to essential services as they take on more costs and lose revenue during the pandemic.
Pence repeatedly made the case for another round of stimulus checks as part of the fifth coronavirus rescue package. He said "nobody wants to give direct payments to American families more than Donald Trump again."
The vice president spoke to CNBC after the Labor Department reported U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 1.37 million and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4%.Pence called the data "real evidence that the American comeback is underway."
The jobless rate remains significantly higher than it was before the Covid-19 outbreak hit the U.S. earlier this year. Permanent job losses in August also increased by 534,000 to 3.4 million.
"8.4% unemployment is nothing to brag about," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in response to President Donald Trump's Friday morning tweet celebrating the jobs report.
Despite four straight months of strong employment growth, the expiration of enhanced unemployment insurance and a federal moratorium on evictions has led to concerns of sharper suffering for many Americans. Even so, after Friday's jobs report, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow told Bloomberg that "we can live with" not striking a coronavirus relief deal, according to Reuters.
In the absence of congressional action to address those and other coronavirus relief measures, the Trump administration has taken limited steps to offer aid on its own.
On Tuesday, the White House moved to halt evictions until the end of the year using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authority. It followed the administration's executive actions to temporarily extend extra jobless benefits for some Americans, continue student loan assistance and forgive the employee portion of the payroll tax.
Senate Republicans aim to take up a narrow pandemic aid plan when they return from their August recess next week. Democrats oppose the roughly $500 billion proposal, meaning it likely will not get through Congress and become law.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
She and Aidsand Wright-Riggins, borough mayor, said Ursinus transparency, communication with the community and testing plan have been a comfort. The college over the years has built a strong relationship with the community, inviting residents in for movie nights, art shows, concerts and other events, they said.
BOSTON (CBS) While every industry was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, the restaurant industry has particularly struggled and many iconic Boston bars have permanently closed as a result. Here is a running list:
Do you know of another Boston bar that has closed because of COVID-19? Email us atwebstaff@cbsboston.com.
CLEVELAND, Ohio State agents on Friday cited five bars four of which are in Northeast Ohio and said the establishments violated coronavirus-related safety restrictions.
The Ohio Investigative Unit visited the bars after they received complaints of blatant violations of the restrictions the state enacted to try and slow the spread of the virus, according to a news release.
Of the five bars, two are in Willowick in Lake County, two are in Akron and one is in Columbus.
Agents cited Stage Pass in Willowick, accusing them of disorderly activity and violating the states new 10 p.m. cutoff for selling drinks, the release states. Agents went to the bar at 9:35 p.m. and saw between 50 and 75 people inside. Employees had not set up any physical barriers and people stood too close together, according to authorities.
Finally, bartenders who did not wear masks, gave patrons drinks after the 10 p.m., the release states.
At Kates Bar & Grill in Willowick, agents cited the bar for allowing patrons to drink after 11 p.m., according to authorities.
At the Highland Tavern in Akron, agents saw about 80 people there standing too close together, according to the news release. Agents bought drinks at 11:45 p.m. from bartenders who did not have on masks, the release states.
The establishment was given two citations. The release notes that the bar received citations on three other occasions.
At the Cedar Wings Lounge in Akron, employees allowed patrons to drink alcohol after the 11 p.m. cutoff for consumption, and agents cited the bar, according to the release.
Finally, at Buckeye Crazy Restaurant and Sports Bar in Columbus, agents bought drinks at 10:20 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. and cited the bar afterward, the release states.
The citations will go before the Ohio Liquor Control Commission, which will determine whether the bars will face penalties, which could include fines and the suspension or revocation of liquor permits.
