French authorities have identified 21 cases of Covid, a few days after an evening in a Bordeaux nightclub. Participants have railed against the ineffectiveness of health passes.
Almost a week after the reopening of nightclubs in France, a cluster was spotted in Bordeaux, reported regional daily Sud-Ouest. The cluster was revealed after a night out at the Hangar FL club, which brought together 670 people on July 9. The Regional Health Agency (ARS) announced a provisional assessment of 21 positive cases.
The establishment had however enforced strict entry, demanding the possession of a health pass, with a verifying QR code, negative PCR test or vaccination certificate.
The appearance of an outbreak of infection in these conditions angered the participants, some criticizing the establishment for not having strictly controlled access. The club’s silence after the fact was also criticized, with some revelers learning of the cluster’s existence only on social media.
The organizers of the evening rejected the criticism and said they had inspected the participants in a rigorous and meticulous way. Those with dubious profiles or certificates were not allowed to enter.
“We had a police check in the early evening. They [the police] made sure we had our scans for the QR codes. Logically, everything was done within the rules. Moreover, out of the 750 people expected, 80 did not come or were turned away because they did not adhere to the norm,” Thierry Coste, manager of the company HFL Productions, told Sud-Ouest.
Same scenario in the Netherlands
The Bordeaux outbreak is reminiscent of the one detected in early July in a club in Enschede, the Netherlands. After an evening of 600 people, more than 165 cases of Covid were detected, even though the health pass had been required. Instead of questioning the role of vaccines, doubts were expressed about the authenticity of the documents presented, with the Belgian and Dutch press speaking of “possible forgeries” or even of “certificates issued in error”.
But on July 16, the ARS of Nouvelle-Aquitaine indicated that “all epidemiological indicators” were on the rise in the region, although the incidence rate is still below the alert threshold. A few days ago, another cluster was detected near Bordeaux, in a hotel in Lacanau.