Hawthorne, California is the headquarters of the company. The image is from the SpaceX.
The omicron variant has made inroads in many parts of the country, and it has made inroads at the Southern California headquarters of the company.
The LA County Department of Public Health published a report on Monday stating that 132 positive COVID-19 tests have been reported at the rocket factory by the company. More than one-quarter of the total number of recent COVID positives in the county have been reported.
Any cluster of three or more positive tests at a facility within a two-week period is an active outbreak according to the LACDPH. The term implies that COVID is spreading quickly at a locale, but that's not what's been happening at the Hawthorne headquarters of the company.
Full space industry coverage of the coronaviruses epidemic.
Several employees who work in the same area contracted COVID outside of work at a non-work related event in September. The positive cases were reported to the LACDPH because of the work done by the company to ensure testing is available to all employees.
Only one case was suspected to have occurred at work, according to the email. The number of cases reported since the September case is 132, which includes employees who may have been on vacation for several weeks, returned to work and received a COVID test that turned out positive. It doesn't mean that 132 employees in Hawthorne have contracted it in the workplace.
According to NPR, the positive cases represent a tiny portion of the rocket factory's workforce.
The founder and CEO of SpaceX has been in the news before. At one point, he speculated that the US would see " close to zero new cases" by the end of April 2020.
The Washington Post reported earlier this year that the electric-car maker had recorded about 450 positive COVID-19 tests at its California production plant. In late March 2020, the plant that employs 10,000 people was forced to close by the county. The facility stayed open for a while.
The company is restarting production against county rules. I'll be on the line with everyone else. "If anyone is arrested, I ask that it be me," Musk said.
" Out There" is a book about the search for alien life and was illustrated by Karl Tate. You can follow him on the social networking site. Follow us on social media.
