A food service employee at the Ithaca location of Mango Mango Dessert tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Tompkins County Health Department press release on Wednesday afternoon.
The release stated that the employee worked shifts on March 14 from 1 to 5 p.m. and on March 15 from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Dryden Road eatery.
The health department recommended that patrons who visited the restaurant during those times immediately self-quarantine at their homes for 14 days since visiting the restaurant.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) had ordered all restaurants in New York State to halve their capacity by 5 p.m. on March 13.
But at the time the employee worked, Cuomo’s following order for all restaurants to shutter dine-in services had not yet taken effect. All restaurants in the state were to shift to take-out only at 8 p.m. on March 16 — one day after the Mango Mango’s employee’s last noted shift.
That weekend, many Cornellians were packing their bags after a short-notice class cancellation, while Collegetown bustled with students partying and crowding restaurants before leaving for the semester.
The Ithaca Mango Mango closed on March 21 until further notice, according to the eatery’s Facebook page.
As of March 25, 23 individuals in Tompkins County tested positive for COVID-19, according to the health department, an uptick from the 18 reported on Tuesday.