String of COVID cases inside Mecklenburg emergency ops center forces month-long closure

The Mecklenburg County Emergency Operations Center, home to a key group of government employees managing the local COVID-19 response, is closed until early January due to a string of coronavirus infections among staff. Operations will continue through remote work, officials told the Observer Wednesday.

At least three employees have tested positive for COVID-19 so far and 10 additional employees are quarantined, emergency management planning coordinator Hannah Sanborn said in a statement to the Observer.

Emergency personnel, including from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the Charlotte Fire Department, use the space to coordinate resources amid the coronavirus pandemic. Before entering the EOC, people must get a temperature scan and fill out a survey about potential coronavirus symptoms, Sanborn said.

The EOC is also used during natural disasters like floods or hurricanes.

Regular policy discussions with town administrators and hospital leaders are often held by phone or video conferences. Top health department leaders, too, are part of the team.

“It is unclear if these cases were linked or if multiple people tested positive concurrently,” Sanborn said in a statement. “Regardless, EOC staff took quick action to avoid further exposure.”

The disclosure comes after Mecklenburg Public Health Director Gibbie Harris told county commissioners Tuesday night the EOC had temporarily shifted to virtual operations to prevent more possible infections and exposures.

The EOC’s physical location at 500 Dalton Avenue closed on Dec. 7. The center has been closed to visitors since October, and no elected officials were at the EOC leading up to the positive cases and quarantine period, Sanborn said.

Emergency personnel are working virtually until at least Jan. 4 out of an “abundance of caution with the cases of COVID continuing to climb in the community,” Sanborn said.

Mecklenburg has logged 53,076 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported Wednesday morning.

Surging cases have also disrupted public transit in Charlotte.

The CATS Blue Line is shifting to a Sunday service schedule for the rest of the month while 12 employees quarantine for COVID-19 after they attended a private event on Saturday, officials said. One employee has tested positive for coronavirus so far, but all event attendees are adhering to health protocols and quarantining for 14 days

Last week, both Chief District Judge Elizabeth Trosch and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Chief Johnny Jennings confirmed they tested positive for COVID-19.

A video from inside the EOC last April shows employees from Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, the hospitals and other agencies working closely together. Personnel wore different colored vests to make them easily recognizable. Representatives from Atrium Health and Novant Health, for example, donned yellow vests. Public information officers were in purple.

Public Health Director Gibbie Harris and Deputy Director of Emergency Management Robert Graham were seen working at the EOC in a “Mecklenburg Minute” video posted April 10. Harris is considered the “incident commander” at the EOC.

“There is a whole system that we are expected to be involved in with training, and education, and exercises that help us prepare for things like this,” Harris said in the video. “So we have the basics down — we know what we need to do. We know what the structure needs to look like and why it works.”

This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 11:28 AM.