Fresno Mayor-elect Jerry Dyer tests positive for COVID-19 after election night dinner
Fresno Mayor-elect Jerry Dyer received notice Tuesday morning he tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a dinner with Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau on election night.
Brandau announced late last week he tested positive for coronavirus.
Dyer previously had a rapid PCR test which produced a negative result, but Monday morning he experienced a light cough.
“Out of an abundance of caution, I took a second test yesterday afternoon,” Dyer told The Bee on Tuesday morning. He received word of the positive test result before noon Tuesday.
Monday evening, he experienced a headache, body aches, chills and a mild fever.
“However, I am already starting to feel much better,” Dyer said. “I would equate my symptoms, at least at this point, to a severe cold or mild flu.
“I consider myself very fortunate as I know others experience severe sickness and unfortunately, death,” he said.
Dyer said he will be in quarantine under the direction of Fresno County Department of Public Health.
Election night dinner
Television stations KSEE 24 and CBS 47 reported that Dyer and Brandau attended a dinner with Fresno Mayor Lee Brand, Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi and Granville President Darius Assemi on election night at the home of Serop Torossian, who works for Kaiser Permanente.
Karbassi confirmed to The Bee that he attended the dinner, but declined to say who else attended. He said there were about six people there.
He took multiple tests and all were negative, but he’s quarantining anyway, he said.
Karbassi said he “went in with a mask,” and the dinner was held in a large, open room. But, some people were having conversations too closely, he said.
A city spokesman would not confirm Brand’s attendance but did say the mayor also took a PCR test which showed he was negative for the virus. The mayor continues to work from home with “limited exception,” the spokesman said.
Since Brandau was also exposed to county supervisors Nathan Magsig, Buddy Mendes and Brian Pacheco, the Board of Supervisors meeting for Nov. 17 has been postponed until Nov. 24, county spokesman Jordan Scott said. Supervisor Sal Quintero has participated remotely.
The board has not determined if the next meeting will be in person or remote.
Karbassi said he should have been more careful at the dinner on election night and warned the community not to let its guard down.
“Don’t get comfortable,” he said. “Even if it’s your first time going out to someone’s house, you can get exposed. That’s what happened to me. Keep distance. It’s (the pandemic) not over, by any means, and it’s probably getting worse.
“We all need to be more careful, including myself,” he said.
Divergent pandemic response
While the county Board of Supervisors continued to meet in person without masks since the virus reached Fresno in March, Brand took a proactive approach and put the city under a shelter order days before California Gov. Gavin Newsom did the same for the rest of the state.
The shelter order came shortly after the March primary election in which Dyer handily won the mayor’s race. He takes office in January, but he’s not new to city politics. During his nearly two decades as police chief, Dyer grew to be a formidable political force.
Since March, city officials took a cautious approach to the pandemic, and Dyer used his fundraising know-how to aid community groups. The Board of Supervisors, on the other hand, recoiled at a potential mask mandate and directed Fresno County’s health officer to make it voluntary.
After a summer spike in infection rates and deaths, Fresno County’s infection rate recently has hovered around a 4% to 5% positivity rate. The county for weeks has remained in the red Tier 2 of Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 12:10 PM.