Cameron Dairy Queen closing due to COVID-19 concerns

Cameron Dairy Queen closing due to COVID-19 concerns

The first local business is closing due to staff being infected with COVID-19.

Dairy Queen in Cameron will be closed until April 29 to do a deep cleaning and quarantine their effected employees.

According to Milam County Judge Steve Young, the case that was diagnosed yesterday was someone who is employed at Mayfield Dairy Queen in Cameron.

“As if yesterday we had nine cases in Milam County,” he said. “Of the nine, six have recovered, one is hospitalized and two are self-quarantined. Fifteen are being monitored. Those 15 had contact with the infected people.”

“This Diary Queen is a very nice clean place,” Young said. “We have no idea how the virus got there. We don’t know if this employee went somewhere or a patron bought it in.”

Young said the Milam County Health Department contacted Dairy Queen owner Robert Mayfield yesterday afternoon and Mayfield took in upon himself to close for the restaurant for 14 days to quarantine those employees and make sure it is safe for patrons to return.

 “We don’t want to do anything that is dangerous to the community and our employees,” Mayfield said. “We are grateful to the Milam County Health Department. They have really helped us out with making plans about what we are going to do.”

Mayfield said he loves being in Cameron and he wants to make sure it is safe before the store reopens and gave a big thanks to Cameron for their support.

“We want to thank him for this hard decision,” Young said. “This is very serious. This virus is very sneaky and deadly.”

Milam County Health Department Director Robert Kirkpatrick said they department conducted a contact investigation with the positive case and identified the people that had high to medium risk. The positive case is isolated at their residence. The health department will continue to monitor those people and they are self-isolating.

Based on their findings Kirkpatrick contacted Mayfield about the outcome.

“We worked with him to make it a voluntary closure,” he said. “We are very happy with the work we have done with them.”

“Food safety concerns have been voiced,” Kirkpatrick said. “Guidelines for food safety concerns have been released by the CDC and this virus is spread from respiratory droplets.”

According to the CDC:

"Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person-to-person through respiratory droplets. Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. Before preparing or eating food, it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds for general food safety. Throughout the day, wash your hands after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, or going to the bathroom.

It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures.

You should always handle and prepare food safely, including keeping raw meat separate from other foods, refrigerating perishable foods, and cooking meat to the right temperature to kill harmful germs."

For more information on COVID-19, visit CDC’s FAQ page.

“This is a very serious thing,” Young said. “We want to remind everyone to wear a mask when out in public and continue to stay home as much as possible.”

Young will have a Facebook Live post at 3 p.m. tomorrow on his Facebook page and is planning a conference call for area business owners at 10 a.m. tomorrow.