A Georgia couple who appeared last week as Mr and Mrs Santa Claus for an event attended by at least 50 children and posed with them for pictures, tested positive for coronavirus two days after the event, exposing them to risk of infection.
Most of the children came in close contact with the couple and some of them even sat on their laps. The pictures from the event also showed the man dressed up as Santa Claus posing without a mask on.
The couple, whose identities were not disclosed, attended an annual Christmas parade and tree-lighting ceremony in Ludowici, Georgia, on 10 December.
Robert D Parker, chairperson of the Long County Board of Commissioners, said the couple did not have symptoms of Covid-19 at the time of the event, which was organised by the Long County Chamber of Commerce.
“I have personally known both ‘Santa’ and ‘Mrs Claus’ my entire life . They’re good folks,” Mr Parker said. “They would never knowingly put anybody in danger.”
“My children both had their picture made with Santa, and their smiles were bigger than any day when they head off to school, where the same risk of exposure exist,” Mr Parker added.
The officials have advised the children who were at the event to quarantine for 14 days and follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I believe I speak for the majority of them in saying that we still stand by the decision of the chamber to move forward with these holiday traditions, and to bring some sense of normalcy to these trying times,” he said in a statement on the Long County Board of Commissioners’ Facebook page.
Since it has been revealed that the Santa couple has tested positive for the virus, Mr Parker said he has been hit by a barrage of hate mail.
“I have had hate mail nationwide,” he said. “They’re all from out of state. The local outrage has been minimal.”
The event took place on the day Georgia reported a record number of new coronavirus cases. The state has 479,340 cases confirmed with a daily average of 4,086 new infections in the last 14 days.
