Retail Stores Becoming 'Mortal Threat' in LA

New Outbreaks at Retail Establishments & Essential Businesses
From Costco and Target to TV sitcom sets, L.A. workplaces hit with coronavirus outbreaks
With Los Angeles County now a leading hot spot of America’s coronavirus crisis, the statistics are hard to process. A person is dying every 10 minutes. And Mayor Eric Garcetti noted Sunday that a person was getting infected every six seconds.

But one thing about the pandemic has not changed during the darkest phase: those who suffer most. For those with the means to stay home and the ability and determination to avoid gatherings, COVID-19 has remained a relatively low risk. For people living in crowded conditions and who must work, it’s become an even more mortal threat.

Workplaces remain an area of growing concern amid new outbreaks at retail establishments as well as other businesses deemed essential. The massive increase in cases increases the chances of workplace transmission.

There are seven Costco warehouses with clusters of confirmed cases of at least 15 infected staffers, with a Culver City location reporting 71 staffers having tested positive for the virus, one in Van Nuys with 50 and another in Woodland Hills with 42. Other affected stores are in Lancaster, Monterey Park, Santa Clarita and the business warehouse in Burbank, according to data released by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

There are eight Home Depots in L.A. County with active outbreaks, including in Alhambra, Cypress Park, Downey, South L.A., North Hollywood, Panorama City, Van Nuys and Signal Hill, near Long Beach. Ten outbreaks at Target locations in L.A. County have been reported recently, with 217 staff members infected.

There also have been infections recently among staff at six McDonald’s locations, four Chick-Fil-A restaurants and two In-N-Outs; at Best Buy stores in Downey and West Hollywood; the Nordstrom in Cerritos; Trader Joe’s in Glendale and North Hollywood; Whole Foods markets in Santa Monica and Sherman Oaks; and Apple stores at the Beverly Center, Glendale Galleria and Los Cerritos Center. Apple closed retail locations in California before Christmas because of the surge.

“Southern California hospitals are facing a crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. Patients are dying in ambulances waiting for treatment because hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed. This is not a safe environment for in-person production right now,” SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.

In Los Angeles County, the coronavirus crisis is forcing the medical system into increasingly desperate measures, with healthcare providers running low on equipment, ambulance operators being told not to bring patients who have virtually no chance of survival to hospitals, and officials scrambling to ensure they can provide enough lifesaving oxygen for critically ill patients.

The outbreaks can sometimes represent poor infection control practices at businesses, but sometimes they don’t. Earlier in the pandemic, officials said some outbreaks — defined as three or more reports of infections among workers at a business over a 14-day period — are more a sign of how widespread the virus is in this county of more than 10 million people, where the virus can be passed from social gatherings to workplaces and then to new homes — a vicious cycle.

There is no doubt that a major factor in virus transmission is social gatherings, including holiday family events and big New Year’s Eve parties. LAPD and Sheriff’s Department officials said they broke up at least 13 New Year’s Eve gatherings involving more than 2,900 people and arrested at least 90 adults on suspicion of violating the stay-at-home order.

It’s also becoming increasingly likely that the virus is spreading more often at workplaces run by essential workers, who then transmit the virus to family or roommates at home.

That is particularly a concern in Los Angeles County’s densely populated, heavily Latino neighborhoods, which have some of the worst rates of virus cases.

Experts say people who must leave home to work and those who live in crowded housing arrangements, often due to the high cost of housing, are at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus.

Article originally published on latimes.com