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McLaren Port Huron hospital will not be holding its 29th annual Children’s Fun & Fitness Festival scheduled for March 21.
The decision to cancel the event is in line with the CDC and Health Department recommendations regarding COVID-19, for the safety of the event participants, staff and community, Heather Gaffney, hospital spokeswoman said in an email.
The free event was designed to give children the opportunity to become familiar with the hospital environment in a way that was fun, active, and geared to them, a previous press release stated.
“There have been no investigated or confirmed cases at McLaren Port Huron. We are cancelling at the recommendation of the St. Clair County Health Department to reduce the risk of possible exposure to the coronavirus (COVID-19),” Gaffney said in an email. “Although there have not been any confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Michigan, the CDC released guidelines to evaluate events that gather large groups of people together. Since the Children’s Fun & Fitness Festival brings hundreds of children into the hospital and the risk of coronavirus could last a long time, the leadership at McLaren Port Huron feels it would be in the best interest of our community to cancel the event for 2020.”
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed 560 across 34 states and the District of Columbia, USA Today reported Monday.
The latest Michigan Department of Health and Human Services press release dated March 5 states there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan.
Symptoms of coronavirus can include fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There have been more than 111,000 confirmed cases in the world, with more than 80,000 in mainland China. According to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard, 3,120 people have died from the virus in China. The U.S. has 566 confirmed cases, with 22 deaths.
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