SpaceX Just Reported the Largest Covid-19 Workplace Outbreak in America
At least 132 employees at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Cali. headquarters in Los Angeles County have tested positive for Covid-19, NPR reports. Currently, the Elon Musk-led rocket factory is the site of the largest recent countywide workplace outbreak monitored by local health officials.
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Covid-19 cases have spiked in California and across the country, attributed in large part to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which was first reported in late November.
A report released by the Los Angeles County of Department of Public Health on Monday stated that the company accounts for almost 30% of workplace cases of Covid-19 in the county at this time; SpaceX’s corporate headquarters employees nearly 6,000 people. Forty-two companies in the county have three or more confirmed cases each, for a total of 496 cases.
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Musk is the CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, which has also experienced a significant workplace outbreak. In March, The Washington Post reported that about 450 of approximately 10,000 employees at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif. factory tested positive for Covid-19 over seven months at the beginning of the pandemic, with 125 of those cases reported in December 2020.
At the time of the Tesla outbreak, Musk decried the statewide lockdown mandates, tweeting “Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”
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SpaceX has made headlines on numerous occasions this year, most notably for its $2.9 billion contract with NASA to build a moon lander for astronauts, and for its September launch of the first civilian-only crew to orbit Earth.
