Nearly half of the employees of a Utah County business tested positive for COVID-19 after the business instructed employees to not follow quarantine guidelines and required staff who had tested positive to report to work, according to a written statement from county executives.

The statement, which was released Monday evening and was signed by Utah County Commissioners Tanner Ainge, Bill Lee and Nathan Ivie and the mayors of each city in the county, said that 48% of employees of the unnamed business tested positive for COVID-19.

Between this business and another in a different geographic region of the county that “did not follow COVID-19 best practices,” 68 employees tested positive for coronavirus, Utah County executives said.

“During the tracing contacts conducted by the Utah County Health Department and Utah Department of Health, we found these businesses instructed employees to not follow quarantine guidelines after exposure to a confirmed case at work and required employees with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis to still report to work,” the statement said. “This is completely unacceptable and resulted in a temporary full closure for one business along with heightened requirements for future cleaning and inspections.”

……….