The Public Health of Bas-Saint-Laurent denies having waited too long before demanding the closure of the company Viandes Du Breton, where a hundred employees and “several members of their families ”are infected with Covid-19.
• Read also: Rivière-du-Loup: temporary closure of the duBreton plant due to an outbreak
Du Breton announced the closure of its Rivière-du-Loup plant on Wednesday evening. The production shutdown is scheduled for a period of 10 days. According to Public Health, 104 employees are currently carrying the virus and several family members have also contracted it, without having the exact figure.
Thursday noon, the director of Public Health of Bas-Saint-Laurent confirmed that his office had summoned the company Thursday morning to order the closure. “We had the company’s cooperation before,” said Dr. Sylvain Leduc.
However, the workers’ union has been calling for such a measure since the start of the week. Have we waited too long? Not according to the regional director.
“From the start of the week, the company was operating at a quarter of its activities and that allowed a distance and also reduced transmission in certain closed environments. These were conditions that allowed us to finalize our assessment, ”explains Dr. Leduc.
All workers in isolation
We have to admit that this assessment will however have shown certain remaining shortcomings since the closure has been requested. It was a visit by the CNESSST, carried out on Wednesday, which confirmed the decision.
“All these evaluations led us to the conclusion that a closure was necessary”, raises Dr. Leduc, specifying that the rate of internal transmission was “very high”.
The 10 days of closure will allow Public Health to establish the game plan for the resumption of activities. We learned Thursday that all of the approximately 500 workers will have to go into administrative segregation for a period of 14 days, positive for the virus or not.
“For now, this measure, we are working today (Thursday) on the plan that we send to the company. You will allow me not to give too many details, but the concept is that. We want to make sure that people have respected a 14-day period before starting work again, ”says the doctor.
Community transmission
Sylvain Leduc would like to remind people in the region that the current situation is not just the result of the outbreak at Du Breton. Community transmission remains high and compliance with measures is inversely proportional in certain sectors.
“In several places, despite the fact that we are able to emergencies, several reports have been brought to our attention to tell us that the measures are not very well respected”, deplores the regional director of public health, reaffirming his will to ask for more intervention from the Sûreté du Québec to control the situation.
The Bas-Saint-Laurent region is currently on an equal footing with its neighbor Chaudière-Appalaches for the title of most affected region per inhabitant. “The situation is worrying. […] This is a track record that we would like to be able to change, ”insisted Dr. Leduc.
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