COVID hits AMO headquarters
An AMO employee at union headquarters in Dania Beach tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, July 29, and remains isolated at home.
This individual fell ill the previous weekend. He took a sick day Monday, July 26 and reported he had tested negative for COVID-19 on Sunday, July 25. He returned to work Tuesday, July 27, and was sent home with a fever that morning. He put in a full day on Wednesday, but he told AMO Director of Business Administration Thom Heaton that evening that he had been listless and achy all day. Heaton arranged for this employee to have a COVID-19 test at the AMO clinic at STAR Center the next morning.
Today, August 2, this employee - reporting under isolation from home - reported that he was feeling "a little better" for the first time in several days.
The coronavirus diagnosis caused other employees who had had direct contact with this employee since Friday, July 23 to be tested as well. All results negative so far, but these employees are to be retested Tuesday.
The AMO headquarters building was closed Friday for top-to-bottom disinfectant, and employees this week will work on staggered schedules, working in the office and remotely on alternate days. All appropriate health and safety protocols will be applied.
Monday, August 2, had been scheduled for the return of direct, in-person official monthly AMO membership meetings, but this was canceled because of widespread COVID-19 contagion statewide.
On Saturday, July 31, Florida reported a record 21,683 new infections, and at least two Broward County hospitals were at capacity with additional coronavirus patients - one hospital was converting conference rooms to COVID-19 intensive care centers.
Local restrictions prohibit gatherings of 10 or more when the infection rate reaches or exceeds five percent.
In Broward County, this positivity rate for the week ending July 31 was 16.57 percent, with a 33.9 percent hike in related hospital admissions. In nearby Miami-Dade County to the South, these rates were 13.3 percent and 36.9 percent; in Palm Beach County to the immediate North, these rates were 18.82 percent 34.66 percent.
Paul Doell
August 2, 2021