Some of the 12,000 people who flew into Miami last weekend to attend the biggest Bitcoin event in history have since tested positive for Covid-19.
It is not clear how many attendees were infected.
The event, Bitcoin 2021, drew cryptocurrency enthusiasts from around the world to the Mana Wynwood convention center in Miami’s arts and entertainment district. People packed into auditoriums and networked during the three-day event. It was the first major conference since the coronavirus pandemic started, and many of those who attended said they were relieved to be out among colleagues trading news and updates.
There was no mask mandate, and no proof of vaccination was required. Covid-19 was only a talking point in the context of how thrilled everyone was to have arrived at the other side of the pandemic.
That is, of course, until some participants took to Twitter to say they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I attended the show after I received two doses of the Moderna vaccine this spring. A vaccination isn’t a 100 percent guarantee of immunity, but at the moment, I’m not presenting any symptoms. Many of my conversations with Uber and Lyft drivers started with a mutual discussion about having been vaccinated.
Whether the conference is ultimately billed as a superspreader event remains to be seen.
It is unclear whether the city of Miami had a contingency plan for this kind of outcome. The mayor’s office and conference organizers did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
On Tuesday, Florida said it will no longer report daily Covid-19 cases and deaths as vaccinations rise and it begins shifting to the “next phase” of the pandemic. Florida reported an average of eight new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, far below its pandemic high of 84 per 100,000.