Eight Huntington Beach employees are not working Thursday after testing positive for the coronavirus, and 33 have tested positive since March, according to a report.
The city began testing employees who were suspected of being infected with COVID-19 on March 17, and the first positive test result was received in early June, the Daily Pilot reported.
City Hall employs nearly 1,500 full- and part-time workers, and the building was closed on Monday for the second time, after briefly reopening on June 29, according to the Daily Pilot. It was not immediately clear if the second closure was due to employees testing positive for the virus.
“We haven’t had any employees contract the virus from another employee,” Catherine Jun, assistant to City Manager Oliver Chi, told the Daily Pilot. “All of our positive tests have been due to exposure outside of the workplace.”
The city is following CDC guidelines, testing employees and contractors who show symptoms, and providing extensive contact tracing and at-home quarantining for those exposed to infected people for over 15 minutes, she told the Daily Pilot.
Those who have been exposed must self-quarantine, and can only return to work after 10 days of the onset of symptoms or positive test result and after experiencing at least three days without symptoms, Jun said.