Tesla Inc. will hand out masks and take workers’ temperatures before they enter the carmaker’s California factory Thursday, according to an internal email laying out measures being taken while production keeps going.

The company also is adding more hygiene stations and rearranging parts of the plant to promote social distancing, Valerie Workman, the carmaker’s head of human resources for North America, wrote in the memo. She said the company continues to hold discussions with government officials about making Tesla’s workspace safe while also continuing to run an operation Tesla deems critical to national infrastructure.

The email is the latest twist in a standoff between Tesla and local authorities who have put in place a shelter-in-place order to contain the coronavirus. The county sheriff’s office where the factory is located has disputed the company’s view that it’s an essential business. A spokesman for the sheriff said Wednesday that the carmaker was preparing to reduce staffing at the facility to about 2,500 from roughly 10,000.

Workman wrote in the email that there have been no layoffs and suggested news reports about the company has been inaccurate.

Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has sent a series of tweets casting doubt on the severity of COVID-19. While he took after General Motors Co.’s CEO by saying Wednesday that his companies may make ventilators, he also suggested it’s unclear there’s a shortage of them.

In a separate tweet, he repeated his view that panic over the virus will do more harm than the illness itself.