On Wednesday, we learned that another Co-op employee tested positive for COVID-19. It is highly unlikely that any customers were close contacts, defined as at least 15 minutes cumulative over a 24-hour period within 6 feet of an infectious person. Still, we are communicating this out of an abundance of caution. For your information, the employee only worked during their infectious period on Sunday, Jan. 2, from 1 pm to 9 pm in our Prepared Foods Department.  

If you have concerns, you can read the State’s updated guidance for close contacts.

If you feel you should be tested, here’s a link to testing locations.

We have notified the Department of Health and conducted our own contact tracing. We do not believe that the employee contracted the virus at work or that there was any transmission within the Co-op. As with all employee cases, this employee is following the State’s guidance for isolating after testing positive. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our practice has been to email members about any instances of employee cases where a close contact was possible (this is our eighth employee COVID case.) Given the increase in cases throughout Vermont and the low likelihood of transmission within our store, we are now going to communicate employee cases through a COVID-19 dashboard on the Co-op website. Information about cases, any changes in Co-op policies and practices, and other relevant information is now available here. We will always communicate directly with any close contacts that we identify through our contact tracing.  

As always, we encourage everyone to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, wear masks in indoor public places, wash/sanitize hands often and use our Curbside Pick-Up service if you want to avoid in-store contact.  

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging time. Thank you for supporting our co-op community. 

Kari Bradley, General Manager