State mandates testing of agricultural workers in large outbreaks

The state is issuing new regulations detailing when employers need to have agricultural workers tested for COVID-19.

Agricultural workers have been hit hard in the coronavirus pandemic, with counties like Yakima, Chelan, and Okanogan seeing high rates of new cases this summer, and a series of outbreaks at local farms, orchards, and food processing plants.

“Rates are really high in Central Washington at the moment, and that has been in part due to some of our essential workforce and the disproportionate impacts of COVID on our food production industries in the state,” said Secretary of Health John Wiesman. “The governor and I are very concerned about that.”

The governor’s new mandate requires agricultural businesses to have all employees tested if more than nine workers or 10% of the staff come down with the illness. Workers staying in isolation facilities on-site need to be checked by health professionals twice per day.

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The order also singles out Gebbers Farms in Brewster, the site of a recent large outbreak, as needing to have every worker tested.

“At the end of July, there were over 120 positive cases, and over 150 employees who had had symptoms during the same period of time,” Wiesman said of Gebbers Farms. “And three workers died of this, so it’s a very serious situation.”

The state Department of Health said Wednesday at a briefing that after a peak in mid-July, COVID cases statewide have finally been going down steadily over the past two weeks. Some counties, especially in Central Washington, are still seeing high numbers, though they are going down from what they were. State Health Officer Dr. Kathy Lofy said most counties are declining or plateauing, though a few — like Spokane and Walla Walla — are still going up.

This decline comes after weeks of high numbers of cases among young people who had admitted to attending social gatherings like backyard barbecues and beach parties. The governor and state health experts had previously stated that this kind of behavior was the main cause of the virus spreading so rapidly.

“It looks like maybe some of our messaging to the 20- to 35-year-olds was maybe taken seriously as we see the number of cases coming down in those age groups,” Wiesman said.

Even though the peak in July was the second peak for the state, Lofy warned that this probably was not the “second wave” that has been talked about.

“A number of public health experts, I think back in the spring, predicted that we might see this rolling pattern of ups and downs,” Lofy said. “It appears to me that that’s kind of what we’re experiencing in Washington to date.”

That’s why it’s more important than ever, Lofy says, for people to continue practicing safe behavior, like wearing masks, staying 6 feet from others, and limiting social contacts to five people outside of the household per week.

“If we do let up our guard and start interacting with more people, we may start moving up again,” she said. “I’m cautiously optimistic at this point, but realize that our position is still pretty tenuous in terms of disease transmission, since disease transmission is so dependent on people’s behaviors right now.”

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