Hundreds of COVID cases reported at Tesla’s Fremont factory since May
Data released following ruling in previous lawsuit
More than 400 coronavirus cases have been reported at Tesla’s factory in Fremont since it reopened in violation of county health orders in May, according to new data released by Alameda County and obtained by a legal transparency website Friday.
The electric-car company notoriously restarted production May 11, even though Alameda County had ordered businesses to shut down because of the coronavirus. That month, it counted fewer than 11 cases among its some 10,000 employees, followed by dozens more each month — including 86 infections in August and 125 in December, the data shows.
The cases were disclosed after a January ruling in a Bay Area News Group lawsuit pertaining to outbreak information at Alameda County long-term care facilities. PlainSite, the website that requested and obtained the Tesla data, relied on that ruling to argue that Alameda County was using the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act “as a false pretense to conceal data” it is legally obligated to disclose, PlainSite said in a series of tweets.
The Alameda County Health Department and Tesla representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Company CEO Elon Musk made national headlines last spring when he tweeted that the factory — where workers build its Model 3, Model S, Model X and Model Y vehicles — would reopen “against
Alameda County rules.” Musk, who also threatened to move the company out of California and filed suit over the local orders, continued to disparage local and national health officials publicly as some employees returned in person to the plant that week.
One worker told this news organization at the time that many were opposed to restarting operations but felt they had no choice but to show up. Two days later, the company struck a deal with the county to partially reopen with “additional safety precautions.”
In the months that followed,
however, Alameda County would not disclose information about possible infections at the plant, citing HIPAA as its grounds for withholding the data. That defense fell apart after the January ruling, PlainSite indicated.
Tesla fought the shelterin-place orders since the
very start of the pandemic, arguing for days with the county in mid-March over whether the car company was considered an essential business.
The company ultimately backed down and suspended operations March 23 before Musk began tweeting again in May.