Three employees at Walmart Chemong Road store test positive

Three employees from the Walmart store on Chemong Road recently contracted COVID-19, but Peterborough Public Health says it is not an outbreak.

On Thursday, The Examiner reported about three additional employee cases at the Walmart on Lansdowne Street as well — also not an outbreak, according to the health unit.

“Three associates from our Peterborough Walmart store (1002 Chemong Rd.) have recently tested positive for COVID-19,” wrote Felicia Fefer, Walmart Canada’s manager of corporate affairs, in an email to The Examiner on Friday.

Two of the employees at the Chemong Road store last worked on April 3, and another last worked on April 6, she said in the email.

“Out of an abundance of caution, associates identified as being in close prolonged contact are directed to self-isolate,” Fefer said in her email.

Walmart Canada has been in contact with the health unit on the cases, she stated in the email.

Brittany Cadence, communication manager for the health unit, wrote in an email to The Examiner that there is currently no outbreak of COVID-19 at either Walmart.

The guideline used by public health officials for determining whether a cluster of cases constitutes a workplace outbreak is specific, she wrote.

It’s only a workplace outbreak if there are two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 with an epidemiological link in the workplace, she wrote — for example, among people working in the same area, on the same shift.

Those infections must occur within 14 days of one another, Cadence added, and it must be determined that both people “could have reasonably acquired their infection in the workplace.”

The health unit is already dealing with three workplace outbreaks at unnamed locations, while two other workplace outbreaks were declared over earlier this week.

“Safety continues to be a top priority at Walmart,” Fefer added in her email, which uses the same wording whenever employee COVID cases are confirmed.

“Rest assured, we will continue to take measures to support the well-being of our customers and associates.”

Walmart Canada continues to follow cleaning protocols, Fefer said, including mandatory masking for customers and associates, limiting the number of customers shopping in the store, increased cleaning in store, cleaning shopping carts and encouraging employees to regularly wash their hands.