HUDSON — The Columbia County Department of Motor Vehicles and County Clerk’s office will remains closed until late next week for most in-person transactions after seven employees have tested positive for COVID-19.
The outbreak may involve the U.K. variant of the virus and the county has asked the state Health Department to look into the possibility, Columbia County Health Director Jack Mabb said Wednesday.
The Columbia County Board of Supervisors announced Tuesday the offices at 560 Warren St., Hudson, will be closed through March 19.
“It’s a tough situation,” Mabb said. “But we’ll get through it, and hopefully we won’t have any more positive staff there as the days progress.”
The offices first closed last Friday after one employee tested positive, Columbia County Board of Supervisors Chairman Matt Murell said.
“We closed, but we were told the person (with COVID-19) was fairly isolated,” Murell said. “The (Columbia County) Health Department had said that they could open back up Monday, but Monday morning we had another positive, so at that time I made a decision to close Monday and Tuesday until Wednesday morning so that we could get a handle on the exposure. Obviously we got a handle on the exposure. Unfortunately, now we’re up to six cases, one is at another location.”
After conferring with the Health Department and legal counsel, Murell said it was determined they needed to close the offices for 10 days, which corresponds with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, to get a better handle on the exposure to staff and to inform the public.
The Columbia County Department of Health is urging anyone who has conducted business with either the county clerk’s office or the Department of Motor Vehicles between March 1 and March 9 to be alert for any COVID-19 symptoms and get tested if they show any signs of infection.
The county Health Department will test additional personnel from the two offices as the week progresses.
“I’m very proud of the fact that we did what we did for a whole year, almost a year to the day actually, before we had a shutdown,” County Clerk Holly Tanner, who runs the two main offices at 560 Warren St., said. “My staff has been working tremendously hard. We believe that this was not customer related, that it was like, you know, your work-family spread. which is why it’s mostly isolated in the DMV.”
The office’s staff who have tested positive are all doing fine, and some have minor flu-like symptoms, Tanner said.
Tanner has been working with Murell and the Department of Health to get the situation under control.
At several times during the day Wednesday, lines of people could be seen outside the DMV. Tanner said these were people who had not heard the offices were closed. Signs were posted outside the building indicating the offices were closed and people who had scheduled appointments have been notified through email that they will need to reschedule them, Tanner said.
Some people are also coming to use the drop box outside the DMV, which can be used for some vehicle transactions, Tanner said.
Scheduled road tests can still be taken because those are conducted by state employees, but written permit tests cannot be taken at this time, Tanner said.
Around 130 people typically come to the DMV each day, she said.
“It’s under control, the situation appears to be contained. People do need to be vigilant, but everyone is doing well, that’s what really matters. We will get through this and be back ready to serve our customers,” Tanner said.
The clerk’s office is closed to the public but Tanner said customers are still able to record deeds and mortgages at this time. By law the department must continue to record legal items, such as court papers, she said.
All of the office’s employees are required to quarantine, Mabb said. Workers who did not test positive and are not showing any symptoms do have to quarantine, but under New York state law they are allowed to continue to work because they are considered essential employees and at this time they are not interacting with the public.
Mabb said the employees who have tested positive are required to be in isolation.
Contact tracing in this situation was a fairly easy task, Mabb said.
“I think that if you go to the DMV and you just show up there you have a greater chance of picking up the virus from somebody in line with you than from one of the clerks,” Mabb said. “There are barriers, and they do tend to wear masks. I think that exposure is greater just being in line and around those people. I think that realistically we’re looking at hundreds of people who have been there over the days that there were positive people in the building.”
Mabb urged people to be mindful of potential symptoms.
This 10-day closure is not the longest COVID-related shutdown the county has had, Murell said. The county previously closed the Office for the Aging for 14 days due to a COVID exposure, he added.
The county DMV has a drop box that can be used for some office business, Murell said.
There will be limited or no staff at the office and it will not be open to the public, he said.