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Kittitas (pronounced 'KITT-i-tass') County is located in central Washington State. It spans from the lush forested Cascade Mountains to the upper Yakima River Valley plains and the Columbia River.
Kittitas County, WA - 05/11/2020 - The Kittitas County Incident Management Team (IMT) continues to respond to the outbreak associated with Twin City Foods Inc. To date, Kittitas County has a total of 40 confirmed cases and numbers may change as more test results are received. As of May 10, all of the people who tested positive were stable and the IMT will continue to follow up with health conditions as we continue to work closely with individuals employed at Twin City Foods.
The IMT is continuing to contact people regarding test results today. As of yesterday 31 of the 34 positive tests were notified and contacted. The IMT staff will continue to notify people who tested positive along with people who tested negative today. To date, 169 Twin City Foods staff has been tested and 34 have tested positive. The majority of the people who tested positive are symptomatic. Personnel at the IMT have started to work one-on-one with people who tested positive to get more information about current health status, onset of symptoms, potential contacts with others, and any needs during isolation. There are currently 116 people in quarantine and 34 are in isolation, and 19 critical infrastructure workers followed closely. We encourage people to isolate or quarantine in their own home and work to support them in that environment. Home isolation and quarantine is not always possible if there are other high risk people living in the household or other circumstances that make home isolation or quarantine not feasible for an individual. In that case, the IMT works closely with individuals to find the next, most appropriate location to maintain physical distancing during the illness. Questions have come up regarding how we are preventing the spread of COVID-19 associated with this outbreak and only people who have a residence in Kittitas County are added to our county’s information. The IMT is working with other health jurisdictions (Grant and Yakima County) to coordinate response for anyone who did not live in Kittitas County. The status of the Phase 2 variance application continues to remain on hold. Press releases will continue to be updated, daily, until information is available on the status of the application. Twin City Foods will be closed until May 19th.Twin City Foods Inc. continues to work closely with the IMT. Dr. Larson, Health Officer, will be walking through the facility today to provide technical assistance in order to prevent any further outbreaks. “ An additional press release regarding the variance and outbreak response will be released today at 4:30 pm. For general COVID-19 questions, the Emergency Operation Center is at 509-933-8315 or 509-933-8305.
Kittitas County, from the Cascades to the Columbia, and online at http://www.co.kittitas.wa.us
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Contact: Kasey Knutson, Public Information Officer, 509-962-7515
