Riverside County public health officials say about half of the county’s coronavirus outbreaks were in grocery stores.
Public Health Director Kim Saruvatari told the Board of Supervisors earlier this week that reports of the most coronavirus outbreaks in Riverside County during July-September stemmed from grocery stores.
Contact tracers had 48 outbreaks over a three-month period.
In businesses associated with “large outbreaks” or even five coronavirus cases. Of the 53 outbreaks, 18 spreads were from grocery stores.
County public health officials say that with this outbreak, grocery store employees may be at the highest risk.
“The grocery store is one of the few industries that has been open all the time so it can’t be more dangerous, only it has remained open and there are more opportunities,” said Michael Osur, chief health strategist. Riverside County Department of Public Health. “People want to come to work and sometimes they come to work when they are sick or they think it’s just an allergy or it could be a cold and we think a lot of times people come to work and expose people to work. doing.”
“Unfortunately the best employees during Kovid stay home when they are sick and changing that culture is a challenge,” Osure added.
County officials said the data lacked some areas, including agriculture and food cosmetics, where people were afraid to talk to the contact. They added that the risk is lower for shoppers who own most grocery stores.
Health officials say you have 15 minutes in the store to come up with a list of what you need to buy and less and you should be fine.
The county will continue to move forward with problem industries to prevent future outbreaks.
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