The US is experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant reached the country. Now, SpaceX has reported an outbreak when 132 of its employees tested positive, the largest number in Los Angeles county workplace outbreaks.
New county data, excluding residential facilities, showed that the rocket company of Elon Musk is at the top of the list so far ahead of the 85 cases at the FedEx facility located near the Los Angeles International Airport.
A pedestrian wears a face mask while crossing a bridge from the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) headquarters on January 28, 2021 in Hawthorne, California.
COVID-19 Outbreak in SpaceX
Musk's SpaceX rocket factory in Hawthorne, California employs 6,000 people and now the outbreak has come amid the new surge of infections in the state and across the whole country. Experts said that the increase in cases is likely fueled by the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported on Monday that SpaceX currently accounts for almost 30% of workplace COVID-19 cases in the county, listing them on top out of 37 companies who have three or more confirmed positive cases with a total of 452.
But this is not the first time that Musk's company had been at the center of COVID-19 workplace infections. According to The Washington Post, it is already the second time in which the first one saw 450 out of roughly 10,000 workers at Tesla's factory in Fermont, California tested positive for COVID-19 in a span of seven months during the early days of the pandemic. Around 250 of the positive cases were detected in December 2020.
Due to the lockdowns and high positive cases in the plant, the county has ordered Musk to stop operations of his company. But he defied the county orders calling them a "fascist" and "not democratic," NPR reported.
"I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me," Musk wrote in his Twitter post last May 2020.
The pandemic has indeed disrupted operations of Musk's companies during the lockdowns. In April this year, SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to build a lunar lander for the Artemis mission. Then in September, SpaceX launched the first all-civilian crew to low-Earth orbit.
ALSO READ: New Version of Omicron COVID-19 Variant Recently Detected; 'Stealth' Variant May Be Harder to Track
Omicron Variant Seems to Be Overtaking Previous Variants
The outbreak in SpaceX comes after Omicron variant cases were detected throughout the country amid holiday travel and gatherings. News outlet ABC7 reported the spread of the new variant has caused Los Angeles county to report its highest number of daily cases since August.
This week, California has marked surpassing 75,000 COVID-related deaths since the pandemic started. Health officials are already concerned that the Omicron variant has become the dominant strain among the other strains of SARS-CoV-2.
Furthermore, hospitals and other health facilities are reporting once again being strained to the limit of resources as cases continue to surge this holiday season brought by an increased transmission during family gatherings and air travel.
Health officials are now looking to screen approximately 30 million air passengers during the holidays as overall cases in the US are up by some 96% since October 2021. Experts said that it is notable that more children are getting infected with 170,000 cases or an increase of 28% in the past two weeks.
RELATED ARTICLE: Experts Weigh in on How Severe the Omicron Variant Will Be That May Strain Health Care Systems
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