The three biggest St. Patrick's Day events in the St. Louis Area will not be held due to concerns about coronavirus.
St. Louis postponed this weekend's downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade and organizers in Cottleville canceled their Shamrock Run & Parade over coronavirus concerns earlier Tuesday, but Dogtown was the last holdout.
The Dogtown Parade, which was scheduled for March 17, was postponed late Wednesday night.
"Both the Ancient Order of Hibernians Saint Patrick's Day Parade and Dogtown Irish Festival committees met this evening," a spokesman for the Ancient Order of Hibernians said in a statement. "After reviewing input from the Mayor’s office and Public Health office, both committees have decided not to hold both events on March 17. The decision was made to postpone both events to a later date, but we have no further details at concerning a date at this time. Both committees are disappointed that we had to make this decision, and we did not make it lightly, but are doing so in abundance of caution."
As of March 11, there is one confirmed case of coronavirus in St. Louis County. She’s a 20-year-old woman. She had been studying abroad in Italy, one of the countries hit hardest by the virus outbreak. Italy is now listed as a Level 3 warning from the CDC and the entire country is essentially on lockdown.
Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Boston canceled parades due to coronavirus concerns.
Ireland also canceled all its parades due to coronavirus. The parade in Dublin typically draws in 500,000 people. As of March 9, Ireland has 21 confirmed cases of COVID-19, which is the disease caused by the virus.
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