August 18, 2020 10.19 am This story is over 55 months old

Four new Lincolnshire COVID-19 cases from Newark factory outbreak

26 Lincolnshire cases from 72 infections at Bakkavor
The Bakkavor Deserts site in Newark recently saw an outbreak of coronavirus cases. Photo: Google Street View

Four new coronavirus cases in Lincolnshire have been linked to an outbreak at a factory in Newark, health bosses have confirmed.

Bakkavor’s Dessert Factory has now voluntarily tested 700 of its 1,600+ staff, and confirmed a total of 72 cases.

Of those, 23 are employees who live in Lincolnshire and commute to work, plus three of their family members.

The majority of the workers have only mild symptoms or did not show any symptoms of the virus when they were tested.

With up to 800 more tests due to be carried out at the site, numbers are expected to rise.

Tony McGinty, assistant director of public health at the county council, said: “In Lincolnshire there’s a concentration of people living in City of Lincoln Council area and then there’s a smattering of people just about all over other places in the county.”

He said health bosses in the county were keeping a close eye to make sure there was no “outward spread” from those affected.

However, Mr McGinty said Lincolnshire’s case numbers – although rising slightly higher than before, but in line with national figures – were not worrying.

A total of 7,680 tests have been carried out in Lincolnshire in the past seven days, of which 30 people were found to be positive.

“That’s giving us a positivity rate which is roughly similar to most of the rest of the country, so it’s still relatively low and we’re nowhere near numbers that will give us cause for concern anywhere, but we are still seeing cases every day in Lincolnshire.”