Sports Illustrated says eight members of the BC men’s basketball team are “sick with E. coli” after dining at the Chipotle at 1924 Beacon Street in Brighton, in a statement confirmed by the college. Most of the students reported eating at the restaurant last week before symptoms developed.
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Chipotle said it had temporarily closed its restaurant in Boston’s Cleveland Circle, where a college spokesman said all the students reported eating, while it works with local health officials to investigate the illnesses. Epidemiologic evidence ties the 52 ill persons to Chipotle restaurants, even though no samples taken at the restaurants or of the food served there has yielded E. coli bacteria.
No ingredients that are likely to have been connected remain in Chipotle’s restaurants or in its supply system and no employees have been identified as having E. coli since this incident began.
At the moment, the Chipotle in Brighton where the students ate has not been linked to the outbreak, although according to ABC News affiliate WCVB-TV, the students are “showing symptoms of E. coli”.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday, Chipotle said sales have been “extremely volatile” since early November as a result of the outbreak. It is unclear how big of a role Chipotle has played in this outbreak, but a recent report has indicated several reported cases of the disease being linked to the restaurant in over nine different states. It also said sales could be battered by additional reports of illness.
After everything that happened in the past few months, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.is now expecting their sales to suffer as much as 11 percent decline in the fourth quarter. The Mexican-themed restaurant has not yet fully bounced back from the E. Coli outbreak in nine states.
Whole genome sequencing on STEC O26 isolates from 21 ill people from California (2), Minnesota (2), NY (1), and Washington (16) show all isolates were highly related genetically to one another.
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Chipotle’s stock dropped in premarket trading Tuesday as the Mexican food chain continues to deal with fallout from an E. coli outbreak and contends with weakening sales.
