Mayor Victorino provides joint statement with Merriman’s Restaurants on March COVID-19 cases

News Release from Maui County Office of the Mayor, April 22, 2020

Mayor Michael Victorino provided the following statement regarding three Merriman’s Kapalua employees who tested positive for COVID-19 in March:

“I want to mahalo Merriman’s Restaurants for coming forward on their own accord regarding three employees of their Kapalua restaurant that tested positive for COVID-19 in March. We are grateful they did not allow any employees to come to work while sick or symptomatic and that they closed their restaurant well before test results were returned. When businesses follow best practices during this pandemic, they protect our entire Maui County community.”

Cristina Schenk, chief executive officer of Merriman’s Restaurants, provided the following statement:

“We took a proactive approach in instructing all employees not to come to work sick during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this instruction, three employees called out sick on March 12, 13 and 16. We made the decision to close our restaurant to full service dining on March 17 and closed take out service a few days later. Throughout this period of time we aggressively sanitized all high-touch points, including menus, tables and door knobs.

The employees sought testing and received positive COVID-19 test results on March 27. By that time, however, they had recovered and did not need hospitalization.

We are so grateful to our employees for going into self-quarantine immediately once they were sick. Thanks to their proactive behavior, this did not spread further or put the public at risk.”

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Restaurant had 65 COVID-19 contacts

MN:   … Merriman’s Maui in Kapalua stepped forward Wednesday to say that it is the restaurant mentioned by a Health Department official as having COVID-19 cases among its employees, though the outbreak is not as widespread as originally announced.

Three workers tested positive for the coronavirus at the restaurant; about 65 people were potentially exposed to the virus, DOH officials clarified Wednesday. The group of cases has since been deemed too small to be a cluster and a “very low” risk to public health.

A day earlier, Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang (a 'chemtrails' conspiracy theorist) said there were 65 confirmed COVID-19 cases tied to a Maui restaurant cluster “a while ago.”

“I apologize. I confused confirmed cases with contacts,” Pang said Wednesday. “To me, they’re treated the same, and you try to isolate the same.”…

When asked why the cases tied to the restaurant had not been disclosed earlier, Hauptman said that the incident had proven not to warrant public concern.

“At this point in time in considering that those three positives from the one restaurant establishment is over a month old at this point, and we do not want the public to be concerned about it that at all because it has been thoroughly investigated and determined to not be a cluster,” she said….  (Yeah.  Right.)

read … Restaurant had 65 COVID-19 contacts

MN: Restaurant: ‘It was a public service to come forward’ after outbreak

April 8, 2020: Maui Hospital Coverup? COVID-19 Cluster Developing Since Mid-March