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28 Spring Breakers Test Positive For COVID-19 After Mexico Vacation

A group of college students in Texas came back from spring break with a lot of memories ― but also with the coronavirus.

About 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin returned from a spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on March 19.

Since their return, 28 of the 70 people who took a chartered plane have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to Austin Public Health.

“The virus often hides in the healthy and is given to those who are at grave risk of being hospitalized or dying,” APH Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott told local station KXAN-TV. “While younger people have less risk for complications, they are not immune from severe illness and death from COVID-19.”

All the confirmed cases are self-isolating and being monitored, including four of those testing positive who showed no symptoms, according to local station KVUE.

An official at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport told KVUE that the majority of students took off to Cabo on March 14 and returned March 19 on a chartered flight.

An APH spokesperson told the station that, although Mexico was not under a federal travel advisory during this period, the CDC recommended avoiding all nonessential international travel.

“A leisure vacation of any kind is not considered essential,” the spokeperson emphasized.

The Texas students who visited Cabo aren’t the only students who may be spreading coronavirus.

NBC Miami is reporting that spring breakers who recently visited South Florida may have spread COVID-19 across the U.S., and Fox News said that an undisclosed number of college students who recently visited Alabama beaches also tested positive for the virus.

Officials initially thought older people would be the most susceptible to COVID-19, but the CDC is warning that younger adults are at risk as well: Adults ages 20 to 54 are making up 38% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S.

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