Despite “strong security protocols” being taken in the city of Huntington Beach, a total of 33 city employees have tested positive for the coronavirus since internal testing began in March, a city spokeswoman confirmed Thursday. .
Catherine Jun, assistant city manager Oliver Chi, said testing of employees suspected of being infected with the virus began on March 17, a day after city officials declared a local emergency. The first positive test result returned in early June.
“Since then, the known total number of employees who tested positive was 33, as of today,” Jun said in an email to the Daily Pilot. “We have not had an employee who contracted the virus from another employee. All of our positive tests are due to exposure outside the workplace. “
Huntington Beach City Hall, which employs 1,486 full-time and part-time employees, closed for the second time on Monday, after a brief and limited reopening on June 29. Officials announced that the modified operations would be implemented “as a proactive health and safety measure” in response to a recent increase in infections and hospitalizations.
On Thursday, the Orange County Health Care Agency reported 905 new infections and 22 deaths, raising coronavirus cases across the county to 32,648 with 543 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Huntington Beach protesters protest social distancing and economic closure. On Thursday, city officials confirmed that 33 employees tested positive for the virus.
(Kevin Chang / Staff Photographer)
In Huntington Beach, which has drawn attention due to the vocal opposition of some residents to the use of masks and social distancing, a total of 1,549 residents have contracted the virus. The city is the fourth in Orange County, behind Santa Ana and Anaheim, two areas identified by health officials as hot spots, and Garden Grove, in terms of the number of infections.
Jun did not connect this week’s city hall shutdown directly to the number of city employees who had contracted the virus, saying that positive tests by an employee itself would not necessarily require a full shutdown.
She said the city is following the latest CDC guidelines and is taking steps to handle suspicious or positive cases. In addition to evaluating employees or contractors who exhibit symptoms, city protocols require a comprehensive monitoring of contact and home quarantine of people who have been exposed to an infected person for more than 15 minutes.
Eight City of Huntington Beach employees are currently out of work after receiving positive tests for coronavirus, the spokeswoman added. A special employee health team consisting of representatives from the city manager’s office, human resources and public safety departments was formed to address the wellness needs of the city’s workforce.
Members of the health team track contacts, who contact employees who are potentially exposed to the virus and inform them that they must be quarantined and control symptoms according to CDC guidelines. Quarantined employees can only return to work 10 days after the onset of symptoms or a positive test result and after experiencing at least three days without fever or symptoms, Jun said.
The employee health team also cross-references CDC guidelines with orders issued by the California Department of Public Health and the Orange County Health Care Agency to build internal policies to guide the city’s actions. during the pandemic.
“These guidelines change regularly as our knowledge of this disease continues to improve,” Jun said. “Our policies will also be adjusted to reflect those changes.”
The Orange County Health Care Agency also reported Thursday that the coronavirus has claimed the lives of 245 skilled nursing facility residents and 17 assisted living facility residents in the county.
There were 690 patients treated in hospitals for COVID-19, and 233 of those patients were in intensive care units.
Orange County administered 6,543 tests for the virus in the last day, bringing the total number of tests conducted by the county to 380,657. It is estimated that 17,091 recoveries were made after a combat with COVID-19.
Here are the latest cumulative case and death counts for selected cities:
- Santa Ana: 6,129 cases; 138 deaths
- Anaheim: 5,621 cases; 135 deaths
- Huntington Beach: 1,549 cases; 44 deaths
- Irvine: 1,062 cases; eight deaths
- Costa Mesa: 1,047 cases; seven deaths
- Newport Beach: 752 cases; five deaths
- Fountain Valley: 333 cases; eight deaths
- Laguna Beach: 118 cases; less than five deaths
The updated figures are published daily in occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/coronavirus-in-oc.
For information on how to get tested, visit occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/covid-19-testing.
Andrew Turner, writer for the Daily Pilot team, contributed to this report.
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