Cornwall Council’s public health team has confirmed that there has been a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in the county after a single alert from the NHS Track and Trace system led to the identification of a cluster of other cases at a food factory in the west of the county.
Intensive testing of the nearly 500 other workers at the Pilgrim’s Pride food factory at Pool near Redruth revealed that 170 staff who were not showing symptoms, and were unaware that they had been infected, in fact had the virus.
At a briefing a spokesman said that Cornwall Council’s public health team, along with Public Health England SW and the NHS, have been working closely with Pilgrim’s Pride Ltd to take ‘proactive action’ to reduce transmission through the local community.
All the Pilgrim’s Pride employees who tested positive for the virus are now self-isolating in line with Government guidelines, as are those identified as having had close contact with them.
Latest figures on the current number of COVID-19 cases across Cornwall can be found at https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/coviddata