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More than a week after employees at a Raley’s supermarket in Benicia held a celebration without a mask, an employee in attendance tested positive for COVID-19.
The Christmas Eve dinner initially sparked controversy after photos posted online showed unmasked grocery store workers sitting and eating close to each other.
A note obtained by the Vallejo Times-Herald said the employee who tested positive for coronavirus “was last on the job site” on December 24. The individual in question is “currently self-isolating”.
Chelsea Minor, a spokesperson for Raley’s, admitted that the celebration “violated COVID-19 protocol” and that the company was taking “this situation very seriously.” She added that the store will remain open as it follows all other mandatory safety and health guidelines.
“If that person shows up for work within 48 hours of testing positive, we close the store and clean it up,” she told SFGATE. “That did not happen in this scenario.”
She also disputed the claims that the meal was a “potluck” because the food was provided by Raley and not by individual workers.
But an anonymous account of the incident to The Times-Herald raised a few questions, including allegations the worker had tested positive long before. Minor denied the request, saying the worker reported his positive test to the store on January 2. The memo was then sent out on January 3, she said.
However, it is unclear whether other employees could still test positive for COVID-19 in the coming days. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that symptoms of the coronavirus can appear up to 14 days after exposure. Employees who would have sat near the infected person for an extended period returned to work on Monday, the Times-Herald reported.
“They all sat there for a long time,” the employee told The Times-Herald. “It was over 15 minutes, for sure. Some spent their lunch hour there.
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