More than a week after employees at a Raley’s Supermarket in Benicia held a maskless celebration, an employee who was positive for COVID-19 tested positive.
The Christmas dinner only provoked controversy after photos posted online showed unmasked grocery store employees sitting and eating near each other.
A memorandum received by the Vallejo Times-Herald states that the employee who tested positive for coronavirus was ‘last’ in the workplace on December 24. The person involved is currently self-isolating.
Chelsea Minor, a spokesperson for Raley’s, acknowledged that the celebration violated COVID-19 protocol and that the company ‘takes this situation very seriously’. She added that the store will remain open as it follows all other mandatory safety and sanitary guidelines.
“If the person gets to work within 48 hours after testing positive, we will close the store and clean it up,” she told SFGATE. “It does not happen in this scenario.”
She also disputes allegations that the meal was a potluck, as Raley provided food and did not bring it by individual workers.
But an anonymous account of the incident to the Times-Herald raised some questions, including allegations that the worker had tested positive long before. Minor dismissed the claim, saying the worker reported their positive test to the store on January 2nd. The memo was then sent on January 3, she said.
However, it is uncertain whether other employees can still test positive for COVID-19 in the coming days. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that coronavirus symptoms can occur up to 14 days after exposure. Employees who allegedly sat near the infected person for a long time returned to work on Monday, the Times-Herald reported.
“They were all sitting there for a long time,” the employee told the Times-Herald. It was for more than 15 minutes for sure. Some spent their entire lunch hour there. ‘