Antrim Health Officer and Fire Chief Marshall Gale said he’s spoken with several residents about their need to quarantine following a positive COVID-19 test.
When someone tests positive for COVID-19, the DHHS contacts them directly and tells them to go into a 14-day quarantine, Gale said, and may check in with them daily. If the patient doesn’t quarantine, or the Health Officer receives multiple complaints from the community, the DHHS sends a written order to the patient, he said.
“I do get made aware of certain individuals, and we do monitor them to the best of our ability,” he said.
A community social media thread got contentious last week with allegations that an employee of a downtown business had tested positive for COVID-19 and continued going to work, putting others at risk.
When asked whether any Antrim residents hadn’t complied with quarantine orders, Gale said he’s “had to speak to a couple individuals” in town personally regarding quarantine. Gale has also fielded calls regarding concerns about Antrim residents with positive COVID-19 tests failing to quarantine, and follows up on each one. There were no positive cases in town as of Tuesday, when he was asked about a recent thread on a community Facebook page, where residents said they feared exposure after an employee in an unnamed local store allegedly failed to self-quarantine.
There have been six COVID-19 cases in Antrim to date, he said, and all of them have fully recovered. Any local businesses that could have been impacted by a COVID-19 positive visitor have followed all sanitation procedures, and at this point, any person who could have been impacted would already be showing symptoms, he said, though asymptomatic transmission could still be possible.
Antrim resident Andrea Dubey Boggs said she and her husband are currently not visiting stores in town after hearing rumors about COVID-19 positive residents refusing to self-quarantine. “I also think residents should have been told about this and not had to hear bits and pieces from other residents,” she said.
Edmunds Ace Hardware owner Rick Edmunds said that if an employee tested positive for COVID-19, they would shut down the store and sanitize everything, and all employees would be tested. About six employees work at the store at a time, he said. Currently, all employees wear masks, screens are up at the registers and staff clean regularly. Touch-free curbside pickup is available for patrons who call ahead. Due to the store’s limited space, it’s difficult to keep everyone six feet away from one another, he said. They are considering mandating that customers wear masks in the store, and Edmunds said he wishes the Governor would push that mandate. “It would make it easier,” he said. “That way, a person isn’t going to shop at one store over another,” based on the store’s COVID-19 prevention policy.
Antrim Marketplace manager Dan Lechuza said nobody in the store has tested positive, but they would follow CDC guidelines and quarantine if that happened. They currently give away free masks, disinfect, and wipe down surfaces every day, particularly in public-facing areas of the store, he said.
Liz Fuller, a representative of T-Bird parent company Global Partners, said that if an employee were to test positive for COVID-19, the store would be temporarily closed for deep cleaning. “We would notify employees that worked with that individual and partner as needed with the local health authorities. The sick employee would receive paid leave until they recover. Our policy also allows employees to take additional time off, should they need to care for a sick loved one,” she said.