Outbreaks At 4 Edmonton Restaurants Are The Source Of 40 New COVID-19 Cases

If you like to hit up popular restaurants in town, you might want to hear this. Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced on Tuesday, June 30, that four restaurants in Edmonton are the sites of COVID-19 outbreaks. People who have visited the restaurants recently are being told to get tested for the disease. 

In her most recent update, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the Chief Medical Officer Of Health, identified the four restaurants in question. 

"Today we are listing new outbreaks linked to four restaurants in Edmonton: the Greta Bar, Earl's Tin Palace, the Pint, and Local on Jasper Ave.," she said. 

In mid-June, three of the four restaurants had announced that they were shutting down temporarily due to either their employees or a recent guest testing positive for COVID-19. 

Any site is considered an outbreak in Alberta if it has recorded five or more cases, according to the Government of Alberta. 

According to the Calgary Herald, Greta Bar has confirmed 15 infections. 

Whereas 10 and nine cases of COVID-19 have been linked to the Downtown locations of the Pint and Local respectively. Earls' Tin Palace has been the source of six cases. 

Altogether, that adds up to 40 new cases of COVID-19 recently. 

Dr. Hinshaw added in her update, "We are encouraging anyone who attended any of those locations in the last two weeks to get tested."

She said that the restaurants have done well in trying to contain the outbreak. Alberta Health Services is also working closely with them to "facilitate testing." 

According to their social media pages, Greta Bar and The Pint have reopened. Greta told the public that they reopened on July 1.

"We would not reopen after our 14-day self-imposed closure if we weren't 100% confident that our team and our guests were returning to the safest environment possible," they said. 

They also stated that all of their staff have tested negative for COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, The Pint Downtown said on Instagram on June 25 that they received approval from public health officials to reopen as well. They also shared videos of their restaurant being sanitized. 

Narcity has reached out to the Local and Earl's for comment and we will update this article when we receive a response. 

According to the government, an outbreak is declared over when four weeks have gone one without recording a single new case. So the outbreaks listed by the Government of Alberta "have current transmission happening."