You'll Never Guess What Spread at the Swingers Convention in New Orleans

A swingers convention in New Orleans has been deemed a “super-spreader” event by officials after 41 attendees tested positive for coronavirus. Searching desperately for a pun, my boyfriend commented that, “it’s too bad the number of cases wasn’t 69.” We have since broken up.

The Guardian reports that the event, called “Naughty in N’awlins,” went forward in mid-November despite rising cases in Louisiana, with around 250 people congregating. Bob Hannaford, one of the event’s organizers, addressed the outbreak in a lengthy, soul-searching blog post:

If I could go back in time, I would not produce this event again. Even though most of the 41 positive cases have mostly been asymptomatic or very mild cases. The reason I wouldn’t is that I know of two people who had a tougher time and they were suffering. One of them, a good friend of mine, was hospitalized in serious condition.

Note: My friend is out of the hospital and looks like he will be fine.

While a swingers convention is an obviously absurd event to hold in the middle of the pandemic, I do have to give credit to Hannaford for the amount of thought he apparently put into it, even though he made the wrong choice in the end. He invokes masks and social distancing and color-coded wristbands connoting antibodies and negative covid tests. He even didn’t install a dance floor! Still, vigilance is a hard thing to keep up:

“When we contacted the people that were positive, we asked them several questions to find more potential positive cases and try to find out where the biggest risks took place.”

“In almost every case, they admitted to us that they were super diligent on the first two days (Wed and Thurs) and then they relaxed a little on Friday and then they said ‘Fuck it, it’s our last day’ and many admitted that their lax effort on that final day is probably why they ended up positive.”

Yes, the unchecked spread of coronavirus is serious, and this event should not have been held, period. That said, if we can’t laugh at anything in 2020, what are we even doing here? Please share your own puns in the comments below.