Despite an employee testing positive for the COVID-19 on Saturday, grocers were able to access the Brookdale Avenue Food Basics grocery store the very next day.

The employee worked day shifts at the grocery store from April 13-16 and then on April 18, the same day test results came back positive for the virus.

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit’s (EOHU) medical officer of health and chief executive officer told media on Sunday the risk posed by the individual was minimal, as they operated behind a plexiglass. He also confirmed news that had been published earlier on Sunday that the person had not been advised when they were tested Friday that one of the tests done would be for COVID-19.

The infected employee first developed symptoms on Wednesday, and attended the Cornwall Community Hospital emergency department on Friday, where according to Cornwall Newswatch, it was determined that he or she was suffering from strep throat or mononucleosis.

The worker left the hospital and was, as confirmed by Roumeliotis, not instructed to self-isolate, despite suffering from a sore throat, one of the main COVID-19 symptoms. The other order put in place by the EOHU on April 2 lays out the conditions under which individuals are supposed to be self-isolating— despite not being told to do so at CCH, this person fit the criteria for mandated self-isolation.

“The individual was not given any instructions to self-isolate,” he said. “We are strengthening our directives. This is the first time this has happened. We’ve tested thousands of patients. We’re also going to be revisiting the fact every frontline workers need to be assessed for any symptom.”

Roumeliotis said the employee did not have significant contact with the public, but that an EOHU contact-tracing assessment has the risk to other employees at the store as medium. It was learned during the conference call that other store employees will only be tested if they display any sort of symptoms related to the virus.

“Should they develop any symptoms, we will obviously test them,” he said.

Shoppers who attended the store on the days the employee worked should self-asses and get tested if they display any symptoms.

COVID-19 assessment centres:

Cornwall – call 613-935-7762 to book – 850 McConnell Ave.

Winchester – 515 Albert St. – only open from 12 to 6 p.m. on weekdays

Casselman – 872 Principale St. – drive-through location only open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays

Rockland – call 613-933-1375 or 1-800-267-7120 to book – Chamberland St.

Hawkesbury – 750 Laurier St. – only open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

On several occasions, Roumeliotis qualified the incident as low-risk, saying health officials evaluated the amount of time an individual was in contact with the public and what precautions were in place. The store in question was allowed to reopen the following day due to what he called a thorough cleaning undertaken overnight.

“As soon as it was determined that the employee tested positive, that person’s area of work was closed off,” he said. “Overnight, a third party was commissioned to do a deep disinfection of the whole premise, out of precautions.”

Roumeliotis, along with Food Basics head office, also reviewed the list of disinfection and sanitation that was undertaken in the store.

Related

The incident occurred despite the EOHU’s order put in place on April 3, forcing grocery stores, among other businesses, to assess their employees for any flu-like symptoms. Failure to do so could result in a fine of up to $5000 for individuals and $25,000 for a corporation for every day on which the offence occurred or continued.

“They (retailers) need to be assessing their employees on a daily basis, to make sure that no employees are working on the premises when sick,” Roumeliotis said. “These are some of the lessons we want to recapitulate. I’ll be working with our officers to make sure that this is enforced.”

Despite the order having been in place nearly a month, Roumeliotis did not confirm if Food Basics would be receiving such penalties. Instead, he told media the EOHU will be revisiting local retailers and reassessing their safety precautions.

“They are penalties to this and I will be talking to our enforcement officers and to our police and bylaw to ensure that if we get recurrent or any sense of this not happening, we will ensure that there are penalties,” said Roumeliotis.

The EOHU said it has received complaints regarding other retailers not following regulations. Roumeliotis added however, that in several instances customers are the one’s not following procedures, not the retailers.

Both the Tim Hortons employee disclosed earlier this week and Food Basics positive COVID-19 cases were community acquired in Cornwall, as both individuals had no prior history of travel.

In other related news Sunday, the EOHU updated its COVID-19 tracking website to 68 confirmed cases, bringing the count in Prescott-Russell to 42, with those in Cornwall and SDG remaining unchanged at 10 and 16, respectively.

The provincial data released Sunday (based on information submitted by the EOHU on Saturday) still had the case count at 67, though it showed an additional case had been resolved, bringing the total count of resolved cases in the EOHU to 52. To view the Standard-Freeholder’s ongoing tracking of COVID-19 data, click here.

fracine@postmedia.com

twitter.com/FrancisRacine

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