Director of health points to 'carsharing, housesharing and socialising out of work' for Covid-19 outbreak at Northampton factory

Northamptonshire's Director of Health Lucy Wightman said she found Greencore "wasn't to blame" for the outbreak of nearly 300 cases
The Director of Health for Northamptonshire says the outbreak at Greencore is "likely due to car-sharing, house-sharing and socialising out of work".The Director of Health for Northamptonshire says the outbreak at Greencore is "likely due to car-sharing, house-sharing and socialising out of work".
The Director of Health for Northamptonshire says the outbreak at Greencore is "likely due to car-sharing, house-sharing and socialising out of work".

The county's Director of Health has suggested "carsharing, house-sharing and socialising out of work" is at the root of a Covid-19 outbreak at a Northampton manufacturing plant and not the fault of the factory.

The sandwich packaging factory in Moulton Park has been the centre of national news since Thursday (August 13) when it was announced more than 292 positive coronavirus tests had been recorded at the factory, which supplies chains such as M&S.

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But at a coronavirus press conference today (August 14), Northamptonshire's Director of Health Lucy Wightman claimed that Greencore's outbreak has "likely" been brought on by "a small community of employees" car-sharing, house-sharing and socialising out of work.

She also called Greencore an "exemplary employer" for its handling of the situation.

She told the conference: "This particular employer has worked tirelessly and found themselves in a situation no one would want to be in.

"Since right back at the beginning of this pandemic Greencore have been an exemplary employer for looking after their staff and I want to emphasise that. That said, they now have 292 employees that have tested positive at the moment.

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"There are no concerns about the operational management of Greencore.

"What appears to have happened is we have identified a group of employees of whom 60 per cent of them car share. And we saw a number of them are also living in HMOs where transmission is much more likely... and we saw a number of these people socialise frequently outside of work."

The factory reportedly saw four new cases on July 27, which Director Wightman commented was "not unusual" for a manufacturer of its size.

There were then a further four positive tests using NHS testing two days later, reportedly following a social event.

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PHE began holding weekly outbreak meetings with the factory's directors on August 4.

By August 10, 24 positive cases had been reported through NHS testing.

Over the course of August 10, 11 and 12, Greencore contracted private testing on-site through Randox Testing Services. This led to the confirmation of an additional 213 cases, alongside 79 through NHS testing means.

The outbreak was made public on August 13.

Northampton Borough Council leader Jonathan Nunn said the outbreak at Greencore is a "disaster" for the town’s Covid-19 statistics and has national significance.

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He said: "It would be easy to blame Greencore. But the reality is that just isn't the case."

I still believe that if we follow the guidelines stringently we still can avoid that local lockdown. Let's be absolutely honest, the 293 cases in this recent outbreak is absolutely dreadful. Then reality of it is there is some mitigation in that it's around a factory rather than just scattered around the community."