Twenty-eight employees of the election board in one of Missouri’s biggest counties are sick with the coronavirus
November 10, 2020, 8: 41 PM
3 min read
O’FALLON, Mo.– Twenty-eight staff members of the election board in one of Missouri’s largest counties have checked favorable for the coronavirus in current weeks, and a director thinks they most likely got infected from voters, though regional health officials aren’t convinced.
The Jackson County Election Board’s Republican director, Tammy Brown, stated Tuesday that eight full-time and 20 part-time workers evaluated positive for the COVID-19 virus in the previous 2 1/2 weeks. Many are succeeding and recovering in your home, but 2 part-time workers are hospitalized, including one in intensive care, Brown stated.
Jackson County is Missouri’s second-largest county, behind St. Louis County. While Kansas City is part of Jackson County, the city has its own election board. The Jackson County board handled votes cast by nearly 200,000 individuals.
Among them were more than 60,000 people who voted absentee or by mail, Brown said. A lot of those individuals passed through the primary board workplace or the absentee voting office in the weeks leading up to the election, either to pick up a ballot, vote, or drop off a tally.
” We had thousands and countless voters through there every day,” Brown stated. “Individuals who requested mail-in and absentee tallies were walking in their applications and then strolling in their ballots also.”
The board advised individuals to wear masks and to not can be found in if they felt ill. “I’m thinking several individuals didn’t comply with it,” Brown stated.
The board also provided drive-thru voting for people with COVID-19 or who were quarantining because of contact with someone contaminated. When so many part-time employees became ill, full-time election board personnel wound up working the drive-thru line. Brown said she and other employees working the drive-thru line used personal protective equipment, including gowns, masks, deal with guards and gloves.
Jackson County health officials didn’t dismiss the possibility that the workers caught the infection from voters, but spokeswoman Kayla Parker said community transmission is so extensive that determining the source would be next to impossible.
” They might have picked it up from anywhere at this moment,” Parker said.
Alternatively, health authorities do not think voters were at danger of being infected by the workers given that their contact time was brief and defenses such as masks and social distancing remained in location.
Missouri is amongst dozens of states seeing a huge surge in the infection over the past several weeks. The number of brand-new cases reached new records several times last week, and some Missouri hospitals are nearing capability and postponing some optional treatments.
The election board diseases were reported to the Jackson County Health Department.
Brown said the absences are not slowing down the counting procedure necessary to license election results. The due date is Nov. 16.
Last week, on the other side of Missouri, the St. Charles County Election Authority learned that a poll worker concerned work on Election Day regardless of a positive diagnosis. That woman, who has actually not been determined, passed away in her sleep after the election. It isn’t yet clear if she contaminated any voters or fellow election judges. Her cause of death has not yet been determined.
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