UPDATE (5:02 p.m. Friday) — According to county spokeswoman Tammy Proctor, a second employee in the Pender County Sheriff’s Office has tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of positive cases among county staff to five.
She said the three remaining employees are in another department, which cannot be identified because of HIPAA restrictions.
Health Director Carolyn Moser also elaborated on her department’s efforts in performing contract tracing for each of the five employees.
“Every single co-worker, household, friend, enemy, visitor, and any other living person that had the potential for exposure is contacted,” Moser said. “We would never want to risk not informing someone who could get sick, infect others and lead to numerous cases, and chances of death.”
BURGAW — Four Pender County employees have tested positive for Covid-19, but there is some concern that the county did not inform all employees of where those sickened employees worked within the county’s various departments and buildings.
Port City Daily was made aware of the situation by a concerned employee who did not know whether she was working in close proximity to a colleague who tested positive, because county administrators were not notifying its employees of such information.
RELATED: Pender jail deputy tests positive for Covid-19
Asked about the claim that the county didn’t inform its employees of where Covid-19 cases had been confirmed within the county’s departments, Health Director Carolyn Moser neither confirmed nor denied it.
“The health department has identified and notified all close contacts of the postive cases as required by Public Health Communicable Disease Law,” Moser answered in a Thursday evening email.
She said a total of four county employees have tested positive for Covid-19: one who works in the Pender County Sheriff’s Office and three in other unidentified departments.
On Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Office announced that a deputy assigned to the Pender County Jail had tested positive and was put under home isolation — the first county employee to contract the disease, at least publicly. At the time, Sheriff Alan Cutler said there was no evidence to indicate the deputy contracted the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease known as Covid-19, from working inside the jail or from inmates.
Asked what steps the county has taken in response to the additional cases to prevent a further spread within the county’s departments and buildings — specifically due to the concern for those who want to find out if they are working near a colleague who has contracted the contagious virus — Moser said that “Public Health Communicable Disease nurses are mandated to determine potential exposure, follow-up and testing.”
“This is standard practice whether it is COVID, Tuberculosis or any other communicable disease,” Moser wrote. “We are following appropriate infection control measures for cleaning, sanitizing, etc. Contacts are issued quarantine orders by the health director as deemed appropriate.”
Moser added a post-script, noting, “Pender County is not the only county to have employees that have tested positive.”
Pender County’s total case count has risen sharply in recent weeks, mainly due to an outbreak within the state prison located about a half-mile from Burgaw’s downtown courthouse. On April 21, the county announced that four inmates at the Pender Correctional Institution (PCI) had tested positive. Hours later, one inmate died at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, marking the first death of an inmate in a North Carolina state prison.
According to the latest publicly reported county statistics, as of May 20, there were 19 inmates who had contracted the disease. In total, including those inmates and one person from out-of-state who tested positive, the county reported 59 cases of Covid-19.
The county reported its first case on April 3.
Days after the county announced the small outbreak of four inmates who had tested positive, Moser was asked why the county waited to announce the outbreak until 11 days after identifying its first positive test and four days after identifying a second — which, according to the state’s top health official, constitutes an outbreak at that point in a congregate setting.
In response, she said that when the health department was notified on April 10 that a prisoner had tested positive, there was no definitive diagnosis and no other confirmed cases in the facility at the time.
“[The] offender was not a threat to the community,” Moser said. “According to Pender Correctional, all staff had been given appropriate [personal protective equipment].”
She also said the county does not release information that would violate patients’ privacy rights.
“We release numbers, not locations,” she said at the time. “Also, one case does not constitute an outbreak in a congregate living setting. We received the second positive [case] on April 18 which then became an outbreak.”
But she did not address why the county failed to announce this outbreak until four days later.
County spokesperson Tammy Proctor said it wasn’t the county who used the word ‘outbreak’ but the NC Department of Public Safety.
“I would think an announcement of an ‘outbreak’ would come from the prison system,” Proctor said in an email.
Editor’s note: This article initially stated incorrectly that one employee’s location within the county government was unknown; after clarifying with the county, there are three employees whose location was unknown.
Send tips and comments to the reporter at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com, @markdarrough on Twitter, or (970) 413-3815
