Lyon County Public Health says there are four COVID-19 “hot spots” at Emporia manufacturing plants and one at a local church.
Health Officer Renee Hively tells KVOE News there are clusters with 34 patients at Tyson Foods, 13 at Simmons Pet Food, four each at Hostess and Detroit Remanufacturing and seven at Heritage Pentecostal Church.
This reflects six new confirmed positive test results, pushing that total to 83. The overall caseload, including confirmed and presumed positives, is at 104 in Lyon County.
KVOE News has reached out to Hostess, Simmons and Detroit Reman for their situations and comments. At Hostess, Vice President for Human Resources Matt Hall says the business started extra protocols a month ago and has expanded them since then.
Hostess is now ramping up its employee temperature checks. It has also installed barriers in between workstations.
Heritage Pastor Keith Abernathy says the church’s number is skewed because some of the cases reflect people who aren’t active church members and none of them got the virus as part of church activities. He also tells KVOE News the church has no active cases or positive tests at this time and the church has been in compliance with local and state guidelines since the pandemic began.
3 pm Monday: Production plant clusters ‘not a surprise;’ rapid tests underway for workers at Emporia’s hot spots
Lyon County health officials are hoping new testing equipment will help limit the spread of coronavirus at confirmed “hot spots” inside three Emporia manufacturing plants.
Health Officer Renee Hively tells KVOE News there are clusters of 24 patients at Tyson Foods, with over 10 at another cluster at Simmons Pet Food. Totals are currently pending for a third cluster at Hostess, and a fourth cluster is possibly developing at Detroit Remanufacturing. Hively was one of the guests on KVOE’s Newsmaker segment Monday:
During that interview, Hively announced the county has three new rapid-response test mechanisms from Abbott Laboratories as part of a shipment mentioned by Governor Laura Kelly late Sunday. The new tests can provide results within 15 minutes — but Public Health has only received enough equipment to test 500 people, which is not enough to cover the four businesses in question so tests are being limited to the symptomatic.
Tyson has told KVOE News it has implemented social distancing measures, added more cleaning, provided face coverings, checked worker temperatures and encouraged workers to stay home when sick. KVOE News also has reached out to Hostess, Simmons and Detroit Reman for their comments.
Testing is being done at Flint Hills Community Health Center, 420 West 15th, between 10 am and noon and again from 1-3 pm, with testing beginning Monday. Hively says staffers have the PPE they need to handle the new cases.
Emergency Management Director Jarrod Fell says people need to realize it could be quite some time before things get back to normal, so people need to keep doing their part even if they are tempted to lower their guard.
Fell says the economy can’t resume normal operations until positive case numbers decline for two straight weeks.
2 pm Monday: Tyson, Simmons, Hostess confirmed with COVID-19 clusters; Public Health tracking situation at Detroit Reman
Lyon County Public Health is now confirming the locations of three COVID-19 “hot spots” in Emporia and closely watching a fourth.
Health Officer Renee Hively says there are coronavirus clusters at Tyson Foods, Simmons Pet Food and Hostess, with a fourth possibly developing at Detroit Remanufacturing. Hively confirmed at least 24 patients at the Tyson facility and over 10 at Simmons. Totals from the other two plants are not immediately available.
Word of the business clusters comes less than 24 hours after Governor Laura Kelly announced new supplies and personal protective equipment were coming to Lyon County. On KVOE’s Newsmaker segment Monday, Hively announced the county has three new rapid-response test mechanisms from Abbott Laboratories that can provide test results within 15 minutes. Public Health has only received enough equipment to test 500 people, which is not enough to cover the four businesses in question so tests are being limited to the symptomatic.
Testing is being done at Flint Hills Community Health Center, 420 West 15th. Hively says staffers have the PPE they need to handle the new cases.
1 pm Monday: Lyon County Public Health confirms cluster of positive cases at Emporia Tyson plant
Lyon County Public has confirmed a cluster of COVID-19 cases has been connected to a major Emporia employer.
Lyon County Public Health Officer Renee Hively confirmed Monday that two-dozen employees at Emporia’s Tyson plant have contracted coronavirus. In a statement, Hively says, “We started seeing one, we anticipated there’d be another one, and then when that number started going up, it was like, yeah, we definitely have a cluster here.”
The confirmation follows an increase of 40 cases since last Wednesday and the county’s first death due to COVID-19 which was announced Sunday. Word on if the plant is safe to stay open is pending a visit by the health department which Hively says they plan to do at some point this week.
Hively assured residents consumption of Tyson products is still safe at this time stating, “There is no research that shows that you can spread COVID disease through food, by eating a food.”
Additional information regarding clusters within the county may be released later Monday afternoon.
9 am Monday: Lyon County Public Health working on three “hot spots” at Emporia manufacturing plants with help of Abbott Laboratories tests
Lyon County health officials say there are three different hot spots of coronavirus cases in Emporia, all at manufacturing facilities.
Officials aren’t confirming those locations, but they say they have conducted one site visit at a local manufacturer and will use new testing equipment at another starting Monday.
On KVOE’s Newsmaker segment Monday morning, Lyon County Health Officer Renee Hively said new test equipment from Abbott Laboratories will be put to use at Tyson Foods and then at other manufacturers around town.
Tyson has not confirmed any positive tests, but it has told KVOE News it has implemented social distancing measures, added more cleaning, provided face coverings, checked worker temperatures and encouraged workers to stay home when sick.
In addition, Hively said health officials had a site visit at Simmons last week. She commended Simmons for its work to follow social distancing measures or add other protections when the six-foot spacing guidelines were hard to follow. More visits to manufacturing plants will follow soon.
The new tests are part of Sunday night’s announcement from Governor Laura Kelly that said Lyon County was among four counties to get supplies and personal protective equipment to slow the spread of COVID-19 at “clusters centered around food and meat processing plants.”
Lyon County has added over 40 positive cases since Wednesday, including one death reported Sunday. Emergency Management Director Jarrod Fell says people need to realize it could be quite some time before things get back to normal.
Hively says it could be at least two weeks before Lyon County reaches its peak, so both she and Fell say it’s vitally important for residents to continue social distancing measures despite better spring weather and steps taken by other states to reopen their economies.
