A Chipotle restaurant in Massachusetts may be forced to stay closed for the second day in a row after one of its employees tested positive for the highly contagious Norovirus.
According to the director of the Billerica Board of Health, Richard Berube, a Chipotle restaurant in Billerica, located just northwest of Boston, closed on Tuesday after one employee tested positive for the Norovirus.
“As a precautionary measure, it might be good to remain closed for another day. Those are the lines I'm thinking along," Berube told USA TODAY.
The restaurant had already opened on Tuesday when local news station WHDH alerted the Board of Health to the potential outbreak.
A health inspector was immediately sent to Chipotle, where it was soon discovered that two more employees had called in sick and are suspected to have the serious stomach bug.
The Norovirus is characterized by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, lethargy, weakness, and in some cases, loss of taste.
In January, Chipotle was actually served with a grand jury subpoena over the way the company handled a Norovirus outbreak last summer, which ended up sickening more than 200 people, USA TODAY reported.
Over the last year or so, the Mexican fast-food chain’s stock has plummeted by as much as 20% amid outbreak reports of both the Norovirus and E. coli.
Chipotle has worked hard in the last couple of months to strengthen its food-safety standards, even closing all of its stores for a few hours in February to talk to its employees about health and food safety.
Berube said that employees were instructed to throw out all the food in the store and clean it "from top to bottom."
