By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A total of 132 Triumph Foods workers have tested positive for COVID-19 as mass testing at the St. Joseph plant wraps up today.
Missouri State Health Director Randall Williams says the state will work to contain the coronavirus in St. Joseph.
“We are sending up a team of contact tracers to work with the local health department in St. Joe,” Williams tells reporters during the governor’s daily briefing on COVID-19. “We have had a total now of 132 employees at Triumph test positive. Some of those are symptomatic, but the vast majority are asymptomatic.”
In other words, those testing positive didn’t have fevers, coughs, or other symptoms associated with the coronavirus, yet still tested positive for COVID-19.
State health officials initially reported 92 positive tests out of 707 tests taken of Triumph Food employs. Williams did not disclose the total number of test results from which the 132 positive results were taken. Hundreds of test results are expected to come in over the next couple of days.
Williams says the state hopes quick action will result in containment.
“So, in this case, we were on this within two days. We’ve identified 92 asymptomatic people already and that gives us a tremendous power to go into contact tracing and isolate that,” according to Williams.
Contact tracing attempts to locate those who might have come into close contract with those testing positive for the coronavirus.
By the end of Thursday, Northwest Health Services had tested 2,430 of the approximately 2,800 Triumph Foods employees at the south St. Joseph pork processing plant.
Williams is hoping quick action by state and local officials will head off a huge coronavirus outbreak in St. Joseph.
“But, going forward, we now have the testing capacity to move in very quickly,” Williams says. “We had 3,000 tests within 12 hours of needing them in Buchanan County and that is a testament to the providers up there and our capacity.”
Williams says mass testing should give health officials a solid assessment of the spread of COVID-19 at the plant.
“Clearly, our number one goal always is to protect the health and safety (of the workers) and that’s why we’re in there doing 3,000 tests on asymptomatic people.”