Santa Clara County is calling for greater adherence to social distancing and safety protocols at construction sites after “multiple cases” of novel conronavirus were detected among workers at four sites.
There were 10 confirmed cases and more than 30 potential exposures reported at one Mountain View construction site, county officials said in a statement, crediting the employer for notifying the county Public Health Department as soon as the results were learned. The construction company voluntarily closed the site. The statement didn’t identify the construction company or location of the work site.
“These cases emphasize the fact that we are still in the midst of a pandemic,” County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said in a statement. “With additional sectors reopening, it is vital that everyone carefully follow social distancing protocols to ensure that workers are safe. This includes keeping physical distance and wearing a face covering.”
Two construction sites in San Jose and one in Milpitas have had between three and five cases each and have voluntarily closed at the request of the health department for investigation of possible exposure.
Another nine sites have had at least one confirmed case and are working with the county to determine of any possible additional cases.
County officials said new cases are being monitored carefully to contain outbreaks, and working with employers and unions on education about prevention practices and required protocols.
Construction was allowed to resume on May 4 under strict compliance “with safety and social distancing protocols specific to the construction industry,” the county said.
As of Friday the county overall had 3,117 COVID-19 cases and 150 deaths. — Bay City News
What about contact tracing? I have not read about that in any of the articles about the construction site outbreaks.
There might be a language difficulty. Many construction laborers only speak Spanish.
Golly, where are we going to find someone who speaks Spanish in California?
What a dumb racist comment. A lot of employees speak English
Loved your comment Steve. Our department of public health as well as all our local hospitals and health systems and even private doctors offices have legally required translation capabilities for Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew, and lots of languages so I dont think this is the reason for not doing contact tracing. I am hoping that the lack of mention of contact tracing does not mean that contract tracing is not happening but just that it was not mentioned in the article.
On my job site a positive case was reported and the person sent home. I MIGHT believe the areas he worked that day were cleaned out. I DONT believe that his last 14 days of work were back tracked and cleaned out. He was a site wide mechanic. Nobody on the job seems to care.
“one Mountain View construction site”
Which one?
C’mon people! This is journalism 101.
Article is from April 28th.
It is useful to say that the coronavirus behaves very similar to the flu virus, in terms of symptoms, mortality (2%), contagion, and prevalence among the elderly. But the flu virus does not have this impact on the global economy. I absolutely support housing construction. https://www.ablesafety.com/course/10-hour-sst-worker-package-online Housing is in short supply. I question other construction. I live where there is a lot of construction going on, and I’m not seeing physical distancing among construction workers. Will construction workers end up being a pool of transmission? I’m concerned.