Kids' Camp Closes Due to Coronavirus In Lakeland

LAKELAND, FL — The city of Lakeland's summer recreational camp program, Camp Blast, will be closed at one of its two locations for two days due to possible contact with the coronavirus, a city news release said.

The city said that on Tuesday at 7 a.m., a camp counselor who works at the Kelly Recreation Complex alerted supervisors about testing positive for the coronavirus. The counselor is asymptomatic and shows no signs of infection, but notified supervisors immediately upon receipt of the results.

During the temporary closure, a deep cleaning at the Kelly Recreation Complex will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will reopen Thursday.

“I found out this morning and immediately started the process to notify parents, staff and our cleaning crews, so we moved very fast to mitigate the issue," Bob Donahay, director of parks and recreation, said in a news release. "The summer employee showed no signs of being COVID-19 positive, and if it wasn’t for the recent physical they took for an upcoming job, we would probably never have known.” He added, “I really want to thank the employee for contacting us as soon as they received the message from their health care provider so we could notify parents and start the process of contact tracing and deep cleaning the facility.”

The Simpson Park facility is not impacted, and will remain open for the last regularly scheduled week of the summer day camp programming, officials said.

The camp program at both locations ends on July 31. The Kelly location will be opened on the last two days of camp, Thursday and Friday.

“I am extremely sorry that this happened and I feel for the working parents who now have to scramble to find child care for these next few days but the safety and welfare of our visitors, staff and of course our day camp participants is the most important thing at this time," said Donahay.

The city encourages the public to follow the Center for Disease Control recommendations for social distancing and hygiene. A web page that includes multiple coronavirus resources was designed by the city. You can find this site by visiting LakelandGov.net/COVID19.