KALAMAZOO, MI — Jason Watts said days after attending a Republican Party district meeting at a restaurant in Portage, he heard that several others at the meeting contracted COVID-19 and started feeling symptoms himself.
Watts tested positive for COVID-19. Now, nearly two weeks after the meeting, he is recovering in a hospital after fighting the deadly virus. The treasurer of the 6th District Republican Committee and an Allegan County resident, Watts spoke to MLive on Tuesday, April 13.
Watts said he was required to come to the March 31 meeting at Travelers Café and Pub in Portage, where officials were planning to consider a petition to remove him from office because he talked to the New York Times and gave comments critical of Donald Trump, saying the party needed to move on from the former president. Some in the group wanted him out, but that did not happen at the meeting, Watts said.
He ended up in a Grand Rapids hospital soon after the meeting instead.
Watts, 44, said he was one of probably three people he saw wearing a mask during the meeting. After he left, he heard rumblings that people had COVID-19, he said.
Watts estimates there were six people he knows of who were positive for COVID-19 afterward, though he believes there are others. He spoke to some of them directly, he said. Some who tested positive later were seated at his table, he said. According to Watts, none of them knew they had the virus at the time.
Watts said he reported the incident. A Kalamazoo County health department official said the agency is aware of the event.
“This has been on our radar as well as all facilities that hold meetings that may be in violation of the MDHHS Epidemic Orders,” Public Information Officer Matt Johnson said.
“At this time, we do not have enough information to state that this was an outbreak or super spreader event,” he said on Tuesday.
The county’s health department was notified through contact tracing of positive cases, Johnson said. The health department has contacted the establishment, he said.
Watts believes he contracted the virus at the Portage restaurant. He said he went to only one other restaurant in the two weeks before the meeting. He said he has been careful to avoid exposure to the virus otherwise, only going into convenience stores briefly, for example.
He felt he needed to be at the March 31 meeting because of an effort to eject him, he said.
“I was required to go,” Watts said. “There was no Zoom option.”
As he walked in wearing two cloth masks, he said he noted other people were not wearing masks.
“I felt like I was going into a den of virus,” he said of the setting. He estimates there were nearly 70 people there, and he thought the room he was in would have been safer if it had fewer people in it.
Michigan’s restaurant restrictions reduce occupancy by 50%. For Travelers Café, that means 80 people, according to General Manager Brandon Jeannot.
The restaurant operates under the state’s guidelines, Jeannot said. When a customer is seen walking around without a mask, staff will ask the person to please wear a mask, he said. They do their best to police it, he said.
Customers are permitted to take masks off when at the table while eating, he said.
Watts said some people who contracted COVID-19 don’t want it known publicly. Others who were at the meeting have announced a positive test result.
Berrien County Commissioner Ezra Scott, who recently announced plans to run for congress, was one of the attendees, Watts said. Scott posted on his Facebook account on April 6, “Just tested positive for the Rona virus.” Scott could not be reached for comment.
Kalamazoo County Republican Chair Scott McGraw said he believes precautions were taken at the March 31 meeting. McGraw said he sat at a table with Watts and did not catch the virus.
“Granted, there’s a faction of the Republican Party who don’t want to get the vaccine,” McGraw said, though he is not among them. He recently got his second vaccine dose, encourages others to consider getting the vaccine and also encourages people to wear masks.
“I would think it would probably have its roots in in our resolve for freedoms,” McGraw said about the resistance, though he has a different view about the virus himself.
McGraw said he takes it seriously. He lost his father to COVID-19 in December, he said.
“We had a meeting,” McGraw said. “Some people got COVID unfortunately after the meeting. I assume it was from the meeting but I can’t really pinpoint what these people were doing before and after a meeting.
“I just think you can still follow all the rules and the virus can spread easily.”
The Kalamazoo County GOP also holds monthly luncheon meetings at the same restaurant, McGraw said.
A petition was submitted to remove Watts from office after his comments to the New York Times, McGraw confirmed. The petition action was delayed after Watts argued it was not the proper procedure before the March 31 meeting began, McGraw said.
Watts was still waiting to leave the hospital when he spoke to MLive on April 13. He shared his thoughts about the perception that some in his party are not taking the steps needed to fight the virus and keep people safe.
“A mask shouldn’t have a political party,” Watts said. “A vaccine shouldn’t have a political party, but we’ve conjured these things to have these connotations. People are getting sick. And to put these connotations on these things does nobody any good.”
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