DETROIT (AP) – Tesla seeks to assure its 55,000 workers that there has not been an outbreak of coronavirus at the company’s facilities worldwide, despite an online report from the electric vehicle industry that more than 130 Tesla workers or subcontractors tested positive.
In an email to staff Wednesday night, the company said that since January, it had recorded fewer than 10 cases of the virus coVID-19 transmitted in the workplace.
But email from Laurie Shelby, Tesla’s vice president of environment, protection and health, also showed reports that Tesla conducted more than 130 positive tests among workers, adding those who contracted the virus outside Tesla’s facilities. He said less than 0.25% of international workers tested positive for the new coronavirus, equivalent to just over 137 workers.
Their message came here in reaction to a report from Electrek.co that more than 130 Tesla workers or subcontractors tested positive and many more are awaiting the verification results. He said he founded the report on the company’s internal data.
Shelthrough wrote that the story was about knowledge “that is being validated” and included workers from around the world who may have inflamed but never entered a Tesla site, or who were inflamed at home while Tesla’s operations were closed the previous year. A Tesla spokesperson did not comment on the report or email, which he received through The Associated Press.
“Almost all of them, more than 99.99%, of those occasions were cases of viruses transmitted to paintings,” Shelby wrote in the email. “Most of the positive cases were the result of a user living or traveling with a coVID-19 user who repainted after recovering from home.
Shelby wrote that Tesla had no hard-working workers in the world because of COVID-19.
On Thursday, a message was sent for comments from the Alameda County Department of Public Health in California, which includes Fremont, the site of Tesla’s only meeting facility in the United States. The plant employs about 10,000 workers.
Some staff members refused to return to the factory for fear of contracting the virus. They did so after Chief Executive Elon Musk challenged in May the Health Department’s orders to restart production with closing orders due to the virus.
Some Tesla staff members and union activists say the company is threatening to fire returning staff, but Tesla officials said the accusations about the layoffs were true. Workers say they’ve heard of COVID-19 cases at the plant, but they know the numbers. They asked the corporate and fitness branch to publish the figures.
However, Shelby wrote in the email that a worker survey revealed that the vast majority of staff are in feeling the company’s protective measures.
Measures include increased cleaning, restrictions on facilities, temperature controls for workers before entering buildings, staggered shifts to separate workers, more barriers between workers and the provision of protective equipment, Shelby wrote.
She suggested that staff wear masks or face covers to stay healthy and save lives and warned that not dressing in masks where it is mandatory or not dressing well with them would result in disciplinary action. He also wrote that staff stay home if they are sick.
Musk reopened the Fremont plant on May 11 in defiance of county orders. The Department of Health had thought the plant was an unsusable company that might not be fully opened under virus restrictions, but Tesla argued that it was imperative under federal guidelines.
However, the next day, the Ministry of Health announced that the plant could resume production as long as it complied with the employee protection precautions it had accepted.