A fifth Bloomington city employee tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. According to a press release by the City of Bloomington, the employee does not usually interact with the public in his day-to-day work.
The employee who tested positive works in the transmission and distribution department of the City of Bloomington Utilities. According to the release, the employee began experiencing symptoms July 7 and went into self-isolation immediately.
“As the employee rarely interacts with members of the public in the course of their work, it has been ascertained that members of the public were not placed at risk of exposure by this employee,” Yaël Ksander, communications director for the City of Bloomington, said in the release.
The City of Bloomington used an internal contact tracing process to track coworkers who interacted with the employee and take proper precautions. The city is also in the process of decontaminating the facilities, vehicles and equipment the employee used.
The new case marks the fifth city employee to test positive for COVID-19 through a viral test. Three Bloomington Fire Department employees tested positive between March and June, and a Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department employee tested positive in April.
Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton’s antibody test came back positive July 1, likely indicating he had the virus at some point as well. Dawn Johnsen, Maurer School of Law professor and Hamilton's wife, tested positive for COVID-19 in April and spent 10 nights in the hospital.
Monroe County has reported 375 positive COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths as of Tuesday, according to Indiana State Department of Health records. The largest percentage of positive cases in the county are among people ages 20 to 29 compared to any other age range.
