Name: Up to 77 test positive for coronavirus at SoFi Stadium; outbreaks at 10 UPS locations reported
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Up to 77 test positive for coronavirus at SoFi Stadium; outbreaks at 10 UPS locations reported

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By | | The Daily BreezeThe threat of spreading the coronavirus at work is still very much a real one, which Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis made clear on Thursday, Aug. 13, when discussing some of the biggest outbreaks the office investigated since the pandemic began.Those putting the finishing touches on SoFi Stadium, in Inglewood, have seen 77 people among their ranks test positive for the virus.At 10 UPS locations countywide, 84 employees have been confirmed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Trojan Battery Company, in Santa Fe Springs, has had 61 employees at two sites get ill with COVID-19. Three have been hospitalized and one person has died.And that’s just the start. In all, county officials have investigated more than 1,400 outbreaks since March — with 891 still ongoing, Davis said.“We continue to see outbreaks in manufacturing facilities, food processing facilities or warehouses where people may or may not have access to personal protective equipment,” Davis said during a Thursday afternoon briefing. “We’ve seen what happens when workplace protections are not in place.”Davis also stressed how important it was for employers to alert the Public Health Department whenever they have at least three cases of the coronavirus among workers.The health officer discussed these outbreaks on the same day the county announced 64 additional deaths and 1,999 new cases. Roughly 300 of the cases reported Thursday came from a backlog of cases through the state’s overtaxed database.A total of 5,171 people have died from complications related to the coronavirus and 216,139 people have tested positive. While the rate of infection has declined in recent weeks, the county remains on the state’s monitoring list and continues to account for roughly half of cases and deaths statewide.The mid-day report did not include updated figures for Long Beach and Pasadena, which operate their own health departments. Pasadena reported 32 new cases, bringing its total to 2,178, but added no deaths to its total of 111.&nbsp; Long Beach reported 142 more cases, for a total of 9,425, and one more coronavirus-related death, for a total of 188.In early July, the county began seeing a surge of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Much of the increase has been fueled by workplace outbreaks — resulting in poor and minority communities getting hit the hardest, Davis said.During the peak in July, for example, rates of hospitalizations among Latinos were nearly four times that of white residents — and death rates were roughly five times higher. Black people, meanwhile, have roughly two-to-three times higher rates of hospitalization than white residents. And while all rates of hospitalizations have come down, those disparities still exist, Davis said.Similar inequities exist when comparing wealth. Those in the highest poverty areas die at rates about four times that of people living in the wealthiest areas, Davis said.“One reason we are seeing health disparities is simply due to the make up of our essential workers,” Davis said. “We are more likely to see workforce exposures among residents working in low-wage industries as they are less likely to be able to work from home and likely face working conditions that are not conducive to keeping them safe from infection.”Investigating the outbreaks, though, isn’t easy.At SoFi Stadium, for example, the situation was complicated by the high number of subcontracted companies. The workers who tested positive there, Davis said, came from among 33 subcontractors, eight of which reported three or more cases. The number of cases out of SoFi has been steadily rising in recent weeks, though the employers were working together, Davis said.“They are in compliance and on top of the general health order management, including contact tracing,” Davis said.County investigators have linked three of the 10 UPS outbreaks to the workplace, Davis said, with officials still looking into the others. UPS centers that reported positive cases included those in Los Angeles, Bell, Gardena, Vernon, Cerritos, Sylmar and Van Nuys.“We can say if two cases were linked in some way that could have likely spread the infection,” Davis said, “but we can’t always tell where it originated.”Previous investigations into 10 positive UPS employees at seven locations in June found they were not linked to the workplace at that time and were likely acquired in the community, Davis said.Coronavirus is unlikely to spread through the mail or packages, he added.Along with contact tracing from reported outbreaks, Davis said, the Public Health Department has received more than 21,000 compliance complaints and investigated cases at nearly 32,000 workplace locations since March, among them nearly 21,000 restaurants, more than 4,700 food markets and more than 3,600 unregulated businesses.“As a community we need to be able to protect public health,” Davis said. “We won’t be able to enforce our way out of this pandemic.”for The Localist, our daily email newsletter with handpicked stories relevant to where you live. .We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. 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By | | The Daily BreezeThe threat of spreading the coronavirus at work is still very much a real one, which Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis made clear on Thursday, Aug. 13, when discussing some of the biggest outbreaks the office investigated since the pandemic began.Those putting the finishing touches on SoFi Stadium, in Inglewood, have seen 77 people among their ranks test positive for the virus.At 10 UPS locations countywide, 84 employees have been confirmed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Trojan Battery Company, in Santa Fe Springs, has had 61...

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David Rosenfeld

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Up to 77 test positive for coronavirus at SoFi Stadium; outbreaks at 10 UPS locations reported

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