By Jon King/jking@whmi.com


Despite rumors to the contrary, authorities say an incident Tuesday morning at a Hamburg Township grocery store was not related to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Hamburg Township Police say they, along with the township fire department and Livingston County EMS, were called on a medical emergency to the Kroger store in the Chilson Commons shopping center on M-36 at about 9:30am. A press release says that due to the location of the incident, the store was closed for a short period of time to allow first responders to clean the area when the patient was located. It went to say that there was no reason to believe the patient was infected with COVID-19 and that it was safe for residents to continue to shop for needed items while using standard precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. The speculation it was coronavirus-related may have come about because first responders were wearing personal protection equipment. But the release points out that those precautions are being taken on all medical calls, regardless of the circumstances, and no one should make any assumption about COVID-19 infection just because they see first responders wearing the gear.