When Will We Know If People Caught COVID at the Minnesota State Fair?

(KNSI) – The 2021 Minnesota State Fair just wrapped up its first weekend, with attendance stunted over the first few days likely due to severe weather and hesitancy about COVID-19 safety at the fairgrounds.

On Saturday, 129,984 people attended the fair, down from 209,105 attendees on the same day in 2019. In the fair’s first three days, 269,373 people visited the fairgrounds, about 54 percent of 2019’s three-day attendance figure of 499,655.

State fair organizers are strongly encouraging, but not requiring, that patrons be vaccinated against COVID-19 and wearing face masks, especially indoors. Some vendors are requiring visitors to mask up in their spaces. The most recent COVID-19 guidance from the CDC urges that everyone, vaccinated or not, wears masks in public indoor settings and crowded outdoor settings where there is substantial or high transmission of COVID-19. All of Minnesota’s counties are currently classified as having substantial or high COVID transmission.

If fairgoers catch COVID, when would we know? State infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann says it takes several days for public health officials to learn about new COVID infections and verify where those individuals might have caught the disease.

“The challenge is that we’re asking people to get tested about three to five days after they attended the fair,” Ehresmann said Friday. “Even for people who went yesterday [Thursday] on the very first day, if they get tested three to five days later, we get the results, we call them … the earliest we could know something would be at the tail end of the fair.”

Ehresmann said it would be unrealistic to have COVID infection data available while the fair is ongoing.

According to the MDH, some COVID cases have been directly linked to other large outdoor gatherings this summer, like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota (19 Minnesota cases) and WE Fest Country Music Festival in Detroit Lakes (nine cases, including one hospitalization).

The Great Minnesota Get-Together began Thursday, August 26th and will last through Monday, September 6th, which is Labor Day.

___