City Hall Employee Tests Positive for COVID-19

PALM SPRINGS — At least one City Hall employee has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a memo City Manager David H. Ready sent to employees on June 22.

Ready said in the memo that “all employees that have had direct exposure are home for quarantine and testing.”

The City Hall employee was not identified. Ready could not immediately be reached for comment.

As a result, new policies have been implemented in workplace, according to the memo with the subject line: Workplace COVID Rule.

Beginning Wednesday, June 24, all employees are asked to check in with their respective supervisors when they arrive at work to have temperatures taken. Any employee whose temperature exceeds 100.4 will be asked to go home and contact his or her medical care provider.

Employees are required to wear face coverings at work and at all city facilities — “and whenever you leave your desk or office and have direct contact with others,” according to the memo.

Ready has been at the forefront of stemming the spread of the coronavirus in Palm Springs. He was the first city manager in the Coachella Valley to call for closing bars, wineries, cannabis lounges, and declaring a local emergency. That was March 18.  Ready took some heat for the decision but remained steadfast.

As of Monday, June 22, Riverside County now has 13,800 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 424 deaths from the virus as the number of county COVID-19 hospitalizations hit another new high in the latest update posted Monday, June 22 on the county public health website.

Cases went up about 8%, or 1,022, from the last update on Friday while deaths rose by 14, or 3.4%. The weekday updates typically reflect diagnoses and deaths that happened over the past few days as it takes time for that information to reach the public health department.

City Hall has been closed since late March and remains closed to the public, Ready told Uken Report,

“Face coverings have been required by employees in city facilities and in the field,” Ready said. “We are concerned with the recent  increase in COVID cases both in the County and Valley, and are focused on making sure everyone complies with our face-covering emergency order.  As you can imagine, such large scale enforcement is challenging, and we must also (be) relying on the good faith effort by our visitors and residents to ensure our City can remain safe and open. ”