Penticton company taking no chances after employee home from vacation tests positive for COVID-19

A Penticton business is taking no chances as it adds to its COVID-19 protocols after a vacationing employee tested positive for the virus.

“We had six people coming back from other countries on Monday, three from a Vegas trade show and three from a Mexican holiday,” Peerless Limited Penticton vice president Mark Berthiaume said Friday, March 20.

On Wednesday, Berthiaume learned one of the employees returning from Mexico had tested positive for COVID-19.

“That employee is an office worker who never came back to the plant since returning from holiday,” he said. “That person is in quarantine and never touched anything here. We advised everyone yesterday of our first case and brought in additional protocols.”

Berthiaume says he has had many conversations with colleagues with the company’s parent firm in Quebec regarding COVID-19 protocols. Together they had put together a set of guidelines for Penticton’s plant that went into effect last weekend.

One of the criteria was employees returning from other countries had to stay home for two weeks.

“We tell our employees we are doing the best we can to protect you inside the fence, but you need to have your own protocols at home, because if you don’t care at home, you will bring it in the plant,” he said.

“We have the quarantine sign to prevent anyone coming on site without our knowledge. Maybe quarantine is not the right word, but we don’t want people to come on site easily and we want to know who they are,” Berthiaume said.

The sign's wording was changed to eliminate the word 'quarantine' on Friday morning, March 20.

“We are trying to improve, because every hour we have a new situation. What a crazy week.”

-This story was updated at 1 p.m. March 20 to include an updated photo of the company's gate sign.

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