50 LA Area Hotel Workers Test Positive For COVID-19 – NBC Los Angeles
The rooftop pool at the W Hotel in Hollywood was packed one recent Saturday afternoon, with almost no one wearing masks and dozens of people mingling closely together in groups, according to video obtained by the NBC4 I-Team. That behavior appears to violate state guidelines requiring hotels to “ensure physical distancing” at their pools.
Even more surprising, the scene was recorded two weeks after an LA
county health inspector visited the hotel and found it in compliance.
“When we go [to hotels], we see what we see, we get what we
get in that regard. And this is one of the reasons why we continue to do
unannounced investigations,” County Health Officer Dr. Muntu
Davis told the I-Team, addressing concerns about the W Hotel.
Despite the pandemic, thousands of people are traveling in
California this summer, and many are checking into hotels. But hotel workers
have told the I-Team they’re worried that not enough is being done to
protect them, and guests, from COVID-19.
At least 50 LA area hotel workers have been infected with
the coronavirus, according to the union representing local hotel housekeepers–UNITE
HERE Local 11.
“This is a matter of life,” said Juana Melara, a
housekeeper at the Westin in Long Beach, where the I-Team obtained documentation
that at least three workers there have tested positive for COVID-19. Melara
says she and her colleagues are worried about being exposed to COVID from
dirty surfaces in the rooms they clean.
“I don’t even have the words to describe how dirty those
rooms are,” Melara said.
She says the hotel has provided masks, gloves, and
sanitizer to housekeepers, but they want full protective suits when they clean
rooms, like hospital workers wear.
“Like the ones nurses have. They protect them from head
to toe,” Melara told NBC4.
Across town at the Holiday Inn at LAX, Nubia Calderon says
she felt symptoms of COVID on July 6th and told her bosses. ‘I had
headaches, body aches. The pain was unbearable,” Calderon told NBC4.
She says her bosses gave her the day off to get tested, but
allowed her to keep working until she got a positive test result the following
week and now she worries that she might have infected others at the hotel and
her family.
“There are lives that are at risk,” said Calderon.
In a statement to the I-Team, the Holiday Inn LAX said, “When the hotel…is notified of a positive COVID-19 case, [it] performs contact tracing…the management team took appropriate and immediate action to confirm no additional COVID-19 cases.”
The Westin Long Beach didn’t respond to repeated inquiries about
workers concerns about the lack of personal protective equipment and employees
testing positive.
As for the W Hotel Hollywood, the I-Team emailed the general
manager Mark Eberwein, asking him to comment about the pool area where there
appeared to be little social distancing and almost no one wearing masks.
He responded in an email saying, “We are operating our pool
following local health authorities’ guidance. Additional steps include rigorous
cleaning protocols and limiting access to registered hotel guests only.”
The LA County Health Department told the I-Team it plans to
continue doing surprise inspections at hotels.
