Coronavirus Groton: 10 Electric Boat Workers Test Positive

GROTON, CT — A total of 10 Electric Boat employees have tested positive for COVID-19, including company present Kevin Graney. The majority of the workers who have the new coronavirus work at the Groton shipyard.

As reported by Patch at the end of March, Graney said he was waiting on the test results for 32 employees. It's not clear if the latest positive cases are included in that number.

In his latest message to employees, Sunday Graney announced that the newest cases include a person who hasn't been at work since March 13 but, when it was learned that they tested positive, "our incident response team contacted employees who work near the individual or who came into close contact when this individual was reported sick. Because this individual has been out of the shipyard for more than three weeks, the risk for infection to others is considered minimal," he said.

The other person works in an office and, Graney said, "had minimal contact with others."

Graney himself announced on Saturday that he tested positive. He said he was last on site Wednesday April 1 and began to feel symptoms Wednesday into Thursday. He said he would "be out of the plant until I am cleared by medical to return."

He said that employees who were near him were told and have been monitoring their own health. He said his office and surrounding areas were cleaned this weekend. He said he'll work from home and described his symptoms as mild, including some nasal congestion and a low-grade fever.

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Electric Boat, which employs about 14,000 workers in sites including Groton and Quonest Point in Rhode Island, is the primary submarine manufacturer for the U.S. Navy. It was awarded a multi-billion-dollar new sub contract at the end of 2019 and has boat trails underway.

To date, six Groton employees have tested positive. Graney said Sunday that EB has "implemented social distancing protocols, enabled work from home for more than 2000 of us, and implemented alternate work schedules including a second shift in New London to help spread our people out. Over the last week, we’ve been making preparations to dramatically reduce the number of people in the Groton shipyard. This plan will be put into place over the Easter weekend and will consist of blue and gold teams that will help spread us out even further. The Operations team is working through the details and I will provide you with an update in the coming days."

Last week, Patch asked if Electric Boat had, or would be, instituting fever checks given Gov. Ned Lamont had said it and other manufacturers like Pratt & Whitney were taking the temperatures of employees. EB has not been doing that but a spokesperson said the company was looking to institute that mitigation effort. But Graney has not included any mention of that measure in any of his messages to employees.