‘I Wasn’t on the Conga Line’

David Brand, reporting for The Queens Daily Eagle:

James Trent, chair of the affiliated Queens Village Republican Club, was admitted to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset where he is recovering from COVID-19, he said from his hospital room Wednesday morning.

Trent said he first began experiencing COVID symptoms two days after attending the Dec. 9 party, which featured a conga line of maskless patrons dancing to the Bee Gees in a widely viewed video first reported by the Eagle.

Trent said he was surprised that he got COVID after attending the party because he “wasn’t doing anything risky.”

“I wasn’t on the conga line. I ate by myself,” he said. “I don’t know how I got this.”

Yeah, it’s a real fucking mystery.

After the event attracted national news coverage, the Whitestone Republican Club issued a defiant statement on Facebook.

“Adults have the absolute right to make their own decisions, and clearly many chose to interact like normal humans and not paranoid zombies in hazmat suits,” the club wrote. “This is for some reason controversial to the people who believe it’s their job to tell us all what to do.”

Just delightful. Certainly not a death cult.

★ Wednesday, 30 December 2020