Kittitas County authorities are testing all employees of a frozen vegetable plant in Ellensburg, Washington, in response to COVID-19 cases associated with the Twin City Foods company.
The county’s incident management team implemented the mass testing on May 8, after the first new case of COVID-19 in the county since mid-April was reported at the plant.
“The additional positive cases mean that over 20% of Twin City Foods employees are positive for COVID-19,” the county said in a press release, about the 34 new cases it found at the plant. The company will be closed for an additional 10 days, while those who tested positive will be isolated at home. Employees who were not tested cannot return to work until completing a 14-day quarantine, according to the statement. According to the county’s Incident Management Team, 116 people are in quarantine, 34 are in isolation, and 19 critical infrastructure workers are being closely monitored. The outbreak comes after the county applied to enter Phase 2 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s reopening plan due to a previously small positive caseload. Before the outbreak, Kittitas County had 15 positive cases, all of whom had recovered from the virus.