By Alyssa Flores and ABC30.com staff
Friday, August 28, 2020 1:56AM
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Merced County health officials announced on Thursday they are shutting down the Foster Farms facility in Livingston due to an uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak.
So far, 358 of the employees at the facility have tested positive and eight of its employees have died because of the coronavirus.
Merced County health officials say the facility is a hotspot for the virus in the county and a source of large proportion of the area's COVID-related deaths.
According to a statement released by the county, for Foster Farms employees, the case fatality rate is 2.2% while it's 1.3% for the rest of Merced County.
The outbreak started back on June 29th and the county says that it made trips to the facility and issued two formal directives to the company, ordering it to increase testing and implement safety measures.
However, it says those directives were not followed and spread of the coronavirus has continued, leading to the order to close.
Merced County has given the facility 48 hours to shut down.
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