San Joaquin Valley company 'encouraging' COVID-19 infected employees to work, lawyer says

Maria Pilar Ornelas felt she was suffocating when she asked her supervisor at Central Valley Meat Company in April to go home and test for the coronavirus, according to the lawsuit she filed last week.

She had a headache, blurry vision and difficulty breathing, but her supervisor denied Ornelas a test and told her to keep working, despite having been exposed to a person who tested positive for the virus, according to the lawsuit.

By the time she got home after her shift, Ornelas was coughing, struggling to breathe, and developed a high fever, the lawsuit says. Her fever persisted the next day, she said, but unable to contact human resources, her supervisor told her to come into work anyway. She did not, according to the lawsuit, and the company punished her for it.

Ornelas tested positive for COVID-19 days later and infected her boyfriend, who ended up at the hospital, according to the lawsuit.

Read more: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/coronavirus/article244518132.html