Macomb government sees jump in quarantines

Officials note steep rise coinciding with spike in new COVID cases

Macomb County government has seen a steep rise in quarantines among its employee ranks coinciding with an increase in COVID-19 cases in the county and state.

The number of employees who have gone into quarantine in March was 191, as of Monday morning, according to Human Resources Director Andrew McKinnon. That is a dramatic increase from 35 in February but below the onemonth high of 276 last November.

The county reported 671 new COVID-19 cases Monday, the second highest this month, after the daily volume of cases dipped below 100 several days in mid-February and have been gradually increasing since. The peak day in the county during the entire pandemic was about 1,100 cases Nov. 26.

There have been a total of 65,196 cases and 1,891 deaths in the county.

McKinnon declined to release how many positive COVID-19 cases by department, citing health privacy concerns.

He said employees go into quarantine if they test positive for the coronavirus, have contact with someone who was COVID-19 positive or are feeling coronavirus-like symptoms.

Employees must quarantine for 10 work days. Since the pandemic began, employees have been able to use two extra paid weeks off provided by the county, on top of two weeks provided by the federal government, though that expired at

the end of 2020, McKinnon said.

Though the total number in quarantine for the month was approaching 10 percent of the county workforce, operations have not been severely impacted. Some of those who are in quarantine can continue working from home, McKinnon noted.

The number of monthly quarantines dropped to 145 in December and 60 in January, he said.