97 confirmed cases in Wrexham outbreak with over 1,000 tests taken

There has been an increase of 27 confirmed coronavirus cases in the outbreak connected to a Wrexham factory.

Today Welsh Government have said of the Wrexham incident:

So far there are 97 confirmed cases and over 1,000 tests have been taken. The factory remains operational. A site visit will take place later this week. All contacts of cases are being followed up and tested and all cases and contacts are self-isolating


All cases directly linked to people working in these factories have been identified through our Test, Trace, Protect system. I am very grateful to our local and regional TTP teams across the country who are working to Keep Wales Safe.


The Health Minister has said, “Whilst all necessary action is being taken to control and prevent the spread of the virus from person to person, I would like to emphasise that there is no evidence that coronavirus survives in food.

Cases of coronavirus are generally continuing to fall across Wales – we have seen fewer than 100 cases each day in the first few weeks of June.

“However we can expect to see some increases in cases as a result of these outbreaks. These outbreaks show that we all need to continue to take coronavirus very seriously – it has not gone away.

“Earlier this week, I met unions representing the workforce at the two North Wales plants and agreed a set of wider actions, focusing on workforce wellbeing. A meeting will be held later this week with the sector, unions and employers to discuss worker benefits.
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Oscar Mayer, owners of Rowan Foods, have previously said: “The Wrexham area has a high number of positive cases, and as such it is concerning but not surprising that we are continuing to see a number of our staff affected by this local trend.

“As Public Health Wales has stated today, whilst we are seeing a number of cases on site, there is no clear evidence to suggest that there is a spread of the virus within the site. Specifically, it has said: “This does not mean that the company has been identified as the source of the infection, or that finding additional cases means the infection is increasing. However, we are identifying previously asymptomatic individuals that work for Rowan Foods Ltd with the infection.”

“We are thankful that our colleagues are recovering from this virus and returning to normal health, over the course of this week we will welcome a number of staff back to work who have completed their period of isolation.”

“The safety of our colleagues remains our priority and our focus is on remaining COVID-19 secure as a site; we continue to follow government guidelines at all times for our own safety and the safety of our colleagues.”

“We are fully engaged with local authorities to actively test our employees for COVID-19 and over the weekend began whole site testing; we will also continue with rapid contact tracing for the workforce. We continue to actively encourage all staff to stay home if they have any potential COVID 19 symptoms, however mild these symptoms may be. ”

You can view two further articles in connection to the outbreak from yesterday here and comments from the Health Minister here.