Missouri man who went to school dance despite daughter’s coronavirus says he wasn’t told to quarantine

After a Missouri woman tested positive for coronavirus, her father and sister went to a school dance anyway. But a lawyer for the family says they were never told to quarantine.

“These poor people are being pilloried and vilified,” attorney Neil Bruntrager told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They were being proactive. They were trying to deal with this problem.”

The 20-year-old woman, a student at Indiana University who has not been publicly identified, reported feeling sick after she returned from Italy on March 2, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page announced during a press conference Sunday. Three days later, on Thursday, she called a coronavirus hotline and was told to get tested.

Page said Sunday that her family was told to self-quarantine at home until her test results came back, but Bruntrager claims health officials only told them to quarantine the victim.

“I don’t believe that dwelling on this accomplishes anything else other than to learn that a quarantine is serious,” Page told the Post-Dispatch.

The entire family has been quarantined since Saturday night, after the dance at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton.

Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School (VDOH), where the younger daughter is enrolled, has shut down for the week for a “hospital-grade cleaning.”

The Ritz-Carlton will also undergo “enhanced cleaning” where the dance was held, a spokeswoman told the Post-Dispatch, as will a local coffee shop where the father went Saturday morning.

“Disinfectant and bleach, a thorough cleaning,” owner Kent McCarty said. “There is no cleaner surface right now than at Deer Creek Coffee. I can promise you that.”

Neither the father nor the younger daughter are symptomatic, according to County co-health director Spring Schmidt.