City of Bloomington Reports First Employee COVID-19 Case in Two Weeks

(BLOOMINGTON) – One City of Bloomington employee has reported a positive result of a COVID-19 viral test since employee cases were last announced on Thursday, February 18.

The employee, whose office is located at City Hall, currently works from home. The employee is not symptomatic and received a positive result on Friday, February 19 after being tested the same day.

No co-workers or members of the public were identified as close contacts as a result of exposure to this employee in the course of their work. (Close contact is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as someone who was within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset or, for asymptomatic clients, 2 days prior to positive specimen collection until the time the patient is isolated.) No positive COVID-19 viral test results were reported by City workers from February 12-18.

This announcement marks the 72nd positive COVID-19 viral test result to have been reported since the start of the pandemic by City workers, including those employed by the municipal corporations that operate the water utility (City of Bloomington Utilities), transit system (Bloomington Transit), and public housing (Bloomington Housing Authority). Sixteen total cases were reported during the eight months from March through October 2020. That monthly rate rose more than eight-fold in the single month of November to 17 cases and rose another 29 percent in December (22 cases). January saw the monthly rate decline 41 percent to 13 positive cases, and in February, there have only been four employee COVID-19 cases.

Data about COVID-19 cases among City employees, in the county, the state and the nation is presented at this online dashboard.

Other COVID-19-related updates and resources are assembled here.  

The City of Bloomington is committed to sharing information about how its operations and workforce are affected by this public health emergency and will continue to provide weekly updates about confirmed cases among staff while protecting employees’ privacy.