147 employees of Gelderland slaughterhouse tested positive for coronavirus

147 of the total 657 people who work at the Vion slaughterhouse and meat processor in Groenlo in Gelderland tested positive for the coronavirus. Health service GGD Noord- en Oost-Gelderland tested all the employees of the slaughterhouse after it was ordered closed when 45 employees were found to have the virus.

The majority of the employees who tested positive, 79, live in Germany, Omroep Gelderland reports. The other 68 live in the Netherlands. All 657 employees were ordered to quarantine themselves at home for two weeks. The housemates of the 147 people who tested positive must also self isolate for two weeks. 

"So 22 percent of the employees in Groenlo are infected with the coronavirus, we find that a high number and we did not expect that," Jan Willem Brethouwer of GGD Noord- en Oost-Gelderland said to NOS.

The GGD is trying to do source and contact investigations, to find out where the employees were infected and who they had contact with that may also be infected, but this is complicated by the fact that some of the employees' contact details are incorrect or missing, Brethouwer said. 

A majority of the Vion employees in Groenlo are temporary workers, which means that they also worked in other slaughterhouses. It is therefore possible that they also infected workers in these slaughterhouses. The GGD will therefore start testing sample groups in other slaughterhouses as well, Brethouwer said.