INGHAM COUNTY - Linda Vail, Ingham County Health Officer, held her weekly media briefing on Tuesday, July 14, to go over COVID-19 data and provide updates on outbreaks and cases in the area.

There has been one known case of the virus at Hopcat in East Lansing. Vail said that the individual was only briefly in the facility and only communicated with a couple of other people while there.

“There is no reason to believe that it is a broad, public exposure, as has happened in other restaurants. It was a very minor, incidental situation,” said Vail.

Vail said that Hopcat is following the procedures required and has shut down the restaurant for a deep cleaning, as required by the state of Michigan, and a contact tracing investigation is currently in the works. Hopcat has not yet reopened, but they plan to return in the coming days according to their East Lansing Facebook page.

An employee at The Sparrow Childtime Learning Center in Lansing has tested positive for COVID-19 as well. The school closed down and went through the deep cleaning process on Monday, July 13. Management is considering keeping the school shut down for the remainder of the week, however, this poses complications. Many of the children being cared for are the children of essential workers from Sparrow.

“We are working closely with [management] in order to make some decisions about what the best steps moving forward should be,” Vail said.

As for the large outbreak from Harpers in East Lansing, cases are starting to stabilize. In order for the outbreak to be considered closed off, there needs to be two incubation periods of 14 days each that have passed. Vail said that the primary cases for this outbreak have closed out and secondary are soon to follow. Cases coming from Harpers are now up to 185.

There are no updates as to the CATA bus outbreak. Vail said that the situation had a low risk of exposure, but because it was on public transportation, it was important to notify the public on the situation. The incubation period is almost over as the outbreak happened between June 30 and July 3.

There are ten positive cases of the virus in the Ingham County Jail. Riverfront Animal hospital currently has up to 21 cases; two of those cases ended in hospitalization, but one of the patients has been released. There was also an outbreak of three cases that happened at a Sprint store, the three being just large enough to be considered an outbreak.

Vail said that mask-wearing and social distancing is what will keep these transmissions down and allow the state to keep businesses and the economy open.