Three Getty Villa Staff Members Test Positive for COVID-19

The Number of Positive Cases Reaches Over 100 in Pacific Palisades

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

The Getty Villa, which has been indefinitely closed to the public since March, reported that three members of its staff have tested positive for COVID-19.

“Last week, we had three workers at the Getty Villa report that they had tested positive for COVID-19,” Lisa Lapin, Vice President, Communications, explained to the Palisadian-Post. “We filed a report to the county, which is required of any workplace [that] has three cases reported among workers in a 14-day period. Our protocol is to do an immediate investigation and our own contact tracing.”

Lapin reported that none of the individuals contracted COVID-19 in the workplace and none had come to work with a fever. She explained that the Getty Villa follows and, in many cases, exceeds state and county workplace safety protocols to keep those working on site safe.

“Any ill worker remains home and quarantines,” Lapin continued. “We practice social distancing and workers wear masks on our sites. If there is an individual who tests positive, we immediately inform any employee who may have possibly been within a distance. Our cleaning protocols are extensive, we have temperature monitoring stations and employees are physically distanced from each other.”

Though the museum has been closed since before Safer at Home orders went into place across the county and state, employees have been on site throughout the closure to protect and maintain the Getty Villa’s collections and grounds.

“In line with the Los Angeles and California Safer at Home emergency order, Getty has transitioned to telecommuting (work from home) for all staff but those in critical facilities and security operations,” according to the Getty website.

Getty reports on the website that it will continue to pay all employees, salaried and hourly, in full during the closure.

“Their safety and well-being has been our highest priority,” Lapin concluded.

As the Post went to print Tuesday, the number of positive cases in Pacific Palisades was 99 with an additional 18 in Palisades Highlands. There have been 185,236 positive cases across Los Angeles County, not factoring in Long Beach and Pasadena, with 4,471 deaths.

Though County of Los Angeles Public Health reported on Monday, August 3, that it was “cautiously optimistic that the county is on the right path to slowing the spread of COVID-19,” a statement on Tuesday reported that “data is incomplete due to delays in the state electronic lab reporting system.”

“The state has determined under reporting of COVID-19 cases due to technology issues with the electronic laboratory system,” the statement explained. “The issue has undercounted the county’s positive cases and affects the number of COVID-19 cases reported each day and our contact tracing efforts.”

Public Health shared that is has implemented an independent strategy to obtain accurate data and a team is working to reach out to at least 81 labs to obtain all COVID-19 test results from July 26 to present to determine the accurate number of positive case count in LA County.

“While the missing data is troubling and hinders efforts to monitor and reduce the spread of COVID-19, data sources that track other key indicators, including hospitalizations, are not affected by this reporting issue,” Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said in the statement. “Hospitalization data for Los Angeles County still shows a decrease, and we continue to be cautiously optimistic that our efforts over the past few weeks may be starting to slow the spread.”