After making it nearly nine months without any reported COVID-19 cases among staff members, the city of Sedona reported last week that five of its employees had tested positive.

During the Sedona City Council meeting Tuesday, Nov. 24, City Manager Justin Clifton announced the cases during his bi-weekly coro­navirus update. As of Monday, Nov. 30, he said some staff members have surpassed their isolation period and were starting to return to work.

All five of the cases came in the final two weeks of November. The individuals are from three depart­ments: Police department, finance department and city clerk’s office.

“It appears all contracted COVID outside of work and it appears unlikely any of them got it from another employee,” Clifton said late last week. “They are all quarantined. I don’t believe any of them had interac­tions with the public. But if they did, our protocols of physical barriers, distancing and masks are meant to prevent the spread of coronavirus.”

While Clifton said the staff has been diligent in its approach to the pandemic, and how they interact with one another and the public, this infor­mation did not come as a shock.

“With transmission of COVID wider and broader than ever before, I’m not entirely surprised that we have some cases among our team members,” Clifton said. “Although some of our team members were surprised to contract the virus consid­ering how careful they are, even outside of work.

“I’m grateful that our preventative protocols appear to have prevented greater spread while any of these team members may have been pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic.”

Clifton said they all “did the right thing” to seek testing and medical advice early once there was any suspicion of transmission.

“My thoughts are with them and hoping that they all experience only a mild and short-lived case of the virus and that they recovery quickly without lingering negative effects,” he said. “This does also remind me of the risk we face as an agency with substantial public interface, even as we are careful to observe best practices in preventing transmission.”

In regard to their interac­tion with the community, he added, “Members from the public have been gracious by largely conducting business by phone or remotely by other means. Nevertheless, I’m giving serious consid­eration to whether or not to further limit these interac­tions by reducing open hours or closing offices.”

Currently, city hall is open to the public Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon.