A fifth City of Bloomington employee has tested positive for COVID-19.
This time it was an employee of the Bloomington Utilities Transmission and Distribution, the city reported Tuesday in an emailed statement.
The test result came Monday, and the employee had been self-isolating for a week.
“The employee has been placed on paid leave to recover,” the statement said. “An internal contact tracing process has identified coworkers with whom the employee recently interacted and who may have been exposed to COVID-19 as a result, and is implementing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to monitor and protect their health and prevent further viral transmission,” according to the news release.
The statement added that facilities, vehicles, and equipment that the employee encountered are being decontaminated.
It also said employees were being reminded of protocols to limit the spread of COVID-19.
The employee who tested positive did not interact regularly in the course of their work, and the city does not believe the public was put at risk.
The new positive test comes amid a steady increase of Monroe County cases over the past week. Monroe County's total COVID-19 case number rose by 14 to 375 on Tuesday, while another 13 cases were reported the day before, the state health department reported.
Twenty-eight people from Monroe County have died from COVID-19, health officials say.
