Indoor Cheerleading Event In Montco Became Super-Spreader: County

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — An indoor cheerleading event earlier this month became a coronavirus super-spreader event in Montgomery County, infecting numerous people from several counties, officials said on Wednesday.

While COVID-19 metrics have been broadly improving across Montgomery County for nearly two months now, authorities note that there is still "plenty of virus" in the community.

RELATED: Most, Least New COVID Cases In Montco: Town By Town

The county did not name the specific cheerleading event or location, but noted that at least 27 individuals have been infected, and that at least seven teams have seen outbreaks. Up to 55 people were inside at a time during the event, officials said.

Contact tracing remains underway.

A total of 14 teams were in attendance at the event.

Officials said that the situation was an important reminder of the utility of the county's Office of Public Health.

"While the facility did have a health and safety plan, they had not submitted a specific COVID-19 mitigation to our office of public health," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said.

County health employees are available to work closely with event organizers to help ensure events are run safely and smoothly.

The county has seen its best numbers since early November in all six of the metrics tracked by the state's Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard.

"I'm cautiously optimistic," Arkoosh said. "It's been great to see a steady decline in our numbers."

That includes a percent positivity rate that's dropped all the way to 5.8 percent, and weekly confirmed cases that were cut nearly in half over a recent seven-day period, from 1,244 to 826.