BISMARCK – Testing this past week found 110 cases of COVID-19 associated with an outbreak at a wind turbine manufacturing facility in Grand Forks, and that count is expected to rise with additional testing proposed this coming week, Gov. Doug Burgum said at a news briefing today.

The spike created by the outbreak at LM Wind Power, which employs 900 workers, raised Saturday’s positive cases by 90, the largest jump since the first confirmed case in North Dakota on March 11. One plant worker is hospitalized. Statewide, the latest statistics show 13 people hospitalized and deaths holding steady at nine. North Dakota had 336 active cases of COVID-19 in today’s numbers, with 183 people having recovered.

Burgum said the state is prepared and well positioned for the outbreak.

“One of the key things that we have spent the weeks preparing for,” he said, “was to make sure we had enough hospital capacity, and we certainly do have.”

Dr. Steven Weiser, president of Grand Forks’ Atru Health System, said the medical center has a surge plan providing 292 beds, including 33 in intensive care. The hospital has 88 available ventilators.

State Health Officer Mylynn Tufte issued a quarantine order for all LM Wind Power employees. The order doesn’t apply to household members, although Burgum said those members are asked to act responsibly to avoid community spread. LM Wind Power has shut down for two weeks for cleaning and is paying employees to remain at home. The plant had been deemed essential to homeland security in remaining open previously.

The response team to the LM Wind Power incident, in which eight workers initially tested positive, included public health workers from Grand Forks, Devils Lake and southwestern North Dakota, 25 National Guard members, five specialists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local police. The team conducted drive-through testing at LM Wind Power Thursday, testing 426 employees, close contacts and a randomized sampling of individuals not known to have been in close contact with the original employees who tested positive. Of the 374 lab results available by this afternoon, 88 were positive. Of those, 66 were in today’s count of 90 new cases. The other 22 were confirmed after the day’s count was released.

An additional 22 cases were confirmed through local testing at Altru, which accounts for the total confirmed cases of 110. Burgum said at least eight of the 110 are Minnesota residents.

The remaining 52 tests from Thursday – still being processed at the time of the news conference – were expected to become available later tonight.

Burgum said additional hospitalizations are possible from the Grand Forks incident, although most people stricken with COVID-19 suffer mild or moderate symptoms and do not require hospitalization. For those hospitalized, the average number of days between onset of symptoms and hospitalization in North Dakota has been six days. The maximum time from onset to hospitalization has been 13 days.

“We were hoping to avoid something like this, but we planned for it and prepared for it. We’ve identified and isolated the problem and are doing everything we can to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 so we don’t overwhelm our healthcare system,” said Grand Forks Mayor Michael Brown. “We are working collaboratively with Altru Health System, the State of North Dakota and LM Wind Power to identify, mitigate and contain the spread as we expect more positive cases to be identified in the following days. We anticipate this to be a prolonged battle.”