Covid-19: Hereford fruit packers self-isolating after outbreak

Several workers at a soft fruit farm in Herefordshire are self-isolating due to a Covid-19 outbreak.

Staff at S&A Produce, in Marden, near Hereford, are affected Public Health England (PHE) said, but refused to reveal how many.

The firm has increased measures to limit the spread of the virus and workers are being tested to identify any more cases.

Herefordshire has seen an increase in cases of coronavirus in recent weeks.

The county's infection rate increased from 23.3 per 100,000 in the week up to 25 April, to 33.7 for the following seven days.

Last week it was a cake factory in Wales filled with Shropshire workers. This week it's the turn of a vegetable farm in Herefordshire to see a workplace outbreak of Covid-19 that pushes up the numbers in a way that looks really alarming. At least at first.

In fact this is exactly what we'd expect as we move into the coronavirus end-game.

It's younger people who haven't been vaccinated, but who are gong into work who are most vulnerable to catching the virus. But with good workplace testing, cases can be spotted early and health officials can do their job. And that's what's happened in Herefordshire.

Overall it's only an increase to 65 cases in the county, a rise of 20 cases.

Now every case is serious, but we are a long way away from the situation we saw at the start of the year. In Herefordshire we should see cases and the infection rate drop as the problem is sorted. And next week it will be a school or a workplace somewhere else in the Midlands.

Dr Naveed Syed, from PHE, said it was "inevitable" outbreaks would happen in places where a large number of people work together.

The firm said its other locations in the county and in south Wales and Kent were operating normally.

Managing director Peter Judge said: "Our key focus is and always has been the welfare and safety of our people and the broader community in which we operate."

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