Boston College now says more than 140 of its students became sick with a gastrointestinal illness after eating at the restaurant. BC director of university health services Thomas Nary said almost all cases are related to students who ate at the Chipotle restaurant on Cleveland Circle over the weekend. Chipotle has been battered in recent weeks by an outbreak of E. coli that sickened at least 52 people in nine states. The company said it thinks the Boston College illnesses are an isolated case of norovirus and unrelated to the E. coli cases.
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“It was clear that Chipotle, who preaches the concept of “food with integrity” and hygienic food, can not go wrong in their own game”, said the note. The City of Boston temporarily closed the restaurant until further notice.
Late yesterday, public health officials said they shut down a Chipotle restaurant in Seattle after “repeated food safety violations” found in three consecutive inspections.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infected workers cause about 70 percent of reported norovirus outbreaks from contaminated food. The virus is highly contagious which is spread by poor hygiene, contaminated food and also contact with areas that are already contaminated.
Symptoms, which include diarrhea and abdominal pain, usually begin two to eight days after a person has been exposed to the bacteria and resolve within a week.
The burrito restaurant chain has been under scrutiny since November, when health officials first linked it to the E. coli outbreak, the company’s third food safety incident since August. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $4.15 earnings per share.
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“When we re-open, the [Boston] restaurant will be completely sanitized, and every single employee will have been tested and assured that they do not have norovirus”, Ells said. Investors have speculated the company may raise its prices to make up for losses in 2016. Cowen and Company downgraded shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $775.00 to $515.00 in a report on Monday.
