Greencore Covid-19 outbreak sparks testing site plans for Northants' large business parks

Employees from the chosen business parks, will be able to get tested at the sites
Business parks across Northants could soon have a dedicated testing station.Business parks across Northants could soon have a dedicated testing station.
Business parks across Northants could soon have a dedicated testing station.

Covid-19 testing stations are going to be set up across Northamptonshire’s large business parks in response to the major outbreak at sandwich factory Greencore.

The county’s public health team is currently dealing with one of the biggest outbreaks in the country after it was revealed last week that just under 300 workers at the business in Moulton had contracted the potentially deadly virus which is spreading quickly across large parts of the world.

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A large number of the staff who tested positive were not showing any symptoms when the company carried out mass testing of its 2,100 employees.

The director of public health Lucy Wightman said last week there were outbreaks at another handful of similar companies in the area and now in a ramped up effort to find out where the virus is transmitting, testing sites will be set up at some of the county’s largest business parks.

A spokesman for the county’s public health team said: “In view of the recent outbreak at Greencore, Public Health Northamptonshire are going to run testing locations on large business parks over coming weeks for employees to get tested. These will be open to any employee on the business park site. Details of these will be published once the sites are confirmed over coming days and weeks.”

In the wake of the Greencore outbreak a new testing unit was set up at Moulton Park Industrial Estate. According to 2015 data from Northamptonshire County Council there are more than 150 industrial parks in Northamptonshire.

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The locations of the new testing sites may give some clue as to where the other outbreaks are, as the identities of the companies have not as yet been revealed by Northamptonshire’s public health team. It says outbreaks will only be made public when there is a wider risk to the population.

An outbreak is defined as when two or more employees are struck down with the same illness within the same time period.

Besides Greencore there has been a known outbreak at the Tayto crisp factory in Corby and a worker at the new Europa factory in Corby has tested positive, with other staff sent for testing.

There has also been at least one case at the Weetabix factory in Burton Latimer.

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Northamptonshire’s cases are still rising across most boroughs. Up until yesterday (Aug 18) there had been 4,084 cases in Northamptonshire, 564 of which have been recorded in the past 14 days.

Northampton is the worst affected area and is at risk of a local lockdown.

Today (Aug 19) it was announced Northamptonshire will commence local testing – with local teams chasing up contacts who the national test and trace system have not been able to get hold of.

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