The entire staff of a Colruyt supermarket in Kuurne in West Flanders have been send into self-isolation after ten of their colleagues were infected with Covid-19 in less than a week, the Krant van West-Vlaanderen reports.
None of the ten employees affected is sick, the company said, but they and the 70 other employees at the store have been isolated as a precaution.
“When the information about the increasing number of infections reached us, we immediately decided to intervene,” said Rudi Dewulf, sales director for West Flanders. “All of the staff who are permanently employed in our store along the Ringlaan will remain in quarantine at home for at least two weeks from last Wednesday.”
The infected employees had taken a test of their own volition on visiting their GPs. Now Colruyt is carrying out testing for the remainder of the staff. While the results are awaited, the store has been cleaned and remains open to the public.
“During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, all contact points in the store were thoroughly disinfected," Dewulf said. “And we organised ourselves in such a way that the store could remain open. Employees from the surrounding shops and a number of staff from the central branch in Halle are now helping out. We have done everything we could to ensure continuity.”
And he stressed that shoppers are not and never have been in any danger.
“There is no danger for customers. Both our own occupational physicians and the [Flemish] healthcare agency have urged us to stay open. The chance that you might be infected by such minimal contact, especially if you maintain the correct distance from each other, is extremely small," he said.
Alan Hope
The Brussels Times
