Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles County, California reported a surge of 43 coronavirus cases on Tuesday despite Hollywood’s return to strict virus protocols.
The Burbank film studio reported the highest rate of employee infections of any L.A. business, The Wrap reported. But other businesses also reported a spike in cases, including Dodger Stadium, the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Vernon, Raytheon Technologies in El Segundo, and the LAX and Burbank airports.
L.A. County officials said that if the infection rate continues to rise, they will re-instate the masking policy country-wide.
“While we’re not seeing anywhere near the devastation this summer that we saw during last winter’s Omicron surge, we are seeing much higher case numbers than we saw during the peak of the Delta surge,” County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.
But even though most of the country has not yet reinstated the more strict COVID protocols, Hollywood’s film industry already went back to full masking and other strict preventative procedures.
As July opened, the film industry returned to its strict virus practices after L.A. authorities reported that more than 8 cases of COVID per week were being recorded in the area. The masking policy has been in for nearly two weeks, already.
Jose P. Ortiz / Unsplash
The industry’s agreement with its unions maintains that if eight or more people per 100,000 L.A. County residents are hospitalized for COVID, film and TV productions must return to mask wearing.
L.A. authorities reported that the hospitalization rate rose to 8.1 by the beginning of July.
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