As many as 5,000 people may have passed recently through a Missouri restaurant where an employee with hepatitis A worked while possibly contagious, health officials said Wednesday.
Red Robin said the employee last worked on May 16 and that the restaurant has been deemed safe after an inspection by the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.
The New Jersey-based restaurant chain didn't say in what area of the restaurant the employee worked but told diners who ate there between May 8 and 16 to call the health department for information about what to do next.
"It scared me because my husband has been sick," Andrea Hall, a Red Robin customer, told CNN affiliate KOLR. "And a lot of his symptoms of his matched. A red flag just went off and I was like what do I do from here."
Read - Thousands may have been exposed to hepatitis A at Missouri restaurant
S'ok. It's Red Robin. Ate there once. Couldn't pay me to eat there again.
The concern should also focus on how food handling personnel may be exposed to contagious diseases. For example, in many states a common misdemeanor punishment is assignment to highway cleanup crews for one or more days. Participants are assigned to clean out homeless camps, including removal of human excrement and spent syringes without specialized training or protective clothing or footwear. Thus exposed, these persons go to their jobs or homes where coworkers, customers, families and pets are placed at risk.