Five men who attended a high school basketball game in Indiana last month, have died of the coronavirus.
The game took place on March 6th at Lawrence Central High School for the regional semi-finals. Over 2,800 fans packed the arena.
According to the Indianapolis Star, at least a dozen other people who attended the game have either tested positive or experienced symptoms consistent with the coronavirus.
Dr. Cole Beeler, an infectious disease doctor at Indiana University Health, sees sporting events like the basketball game as a challenge to containing the spread of disease.
“The problem with any communal event like a basketball tournament is that you’ve got a clustering of people in close proximity,” Beeler told the Star.
The five men who succumbed to the disease, ranged in age from 43 to 78.
“Paul Loggan, 57 and Roscoe Taylor, 43, were there, cheering teams on,” the New York Post reports. “So was Charles Johnson, 78, three rows up behind the Warren Central bench and next to his wife, Kay. Larry Rush, 67, was there, too, in the Lawrence North High School section, one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of Wildcat fans. Jim DeSalle, 70, sat for the second game, near the Lawrence North bench.”
As of this writing, the State of Indiana has had 11,210 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 562 deaths.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
