Three Kroger Co. employees – one each in Finneytown, Middletown and Harrison – tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, according to Kevin Garvey, the president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 75.

The workers were sent home on a two-week paid sick leave, Garvey said. All locations have been disinfected in accordance with guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We are supporting them and wish them all the best in their recovery," Erin Rolfes, the corporate affairs manager for Kroger’s Cincinnati-Dayton division, wrote in an email Sunday.

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The stores are:

10477 Harrison Ave., Harrison.

3420 Towne Blvd., Middletown.

8421 Winton Road, Finneytown.

Rolfes said she couldn't disclose the workers' names or which departments they worked in. Experts say there's currently no evidence that the disease can be transmitted through food or packaging.

Garvey said employers are responding to the pandemic by putting up barricades, placing stickers on the floor to encourage six-foot distancing, making aisles one way and limiting the number of people in a store at any one time.

"In advance to all of this, we put in these policies and procedures to take care of our members and employees in the event of a positive test or exposure of any kind," he said.

The 30,000-member union represents Kroger and other supermarkets, drug stores, food processing companies, health care facilities and packing plants across Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

"All of our employers that we deal with, Kroger being the largest signatory employer, has stepped up financially and is giving their employees additional compensation," Garvey said.

Garvey said the number of people contracting the virus is growing and union members are putting themselves at risk every day because they are considered essential employees.

"I assure you there are more positive tests to come," he said. "They're not going to shut the stores down because of the public's requests for products. Even with the social distancing, everyone's hanging out in the grocery stores. These (members) are basically exposed every day. They're in the middle of all it."

Calls to Meijer were not immediately returned.