If you’re doing business at the Sedona City Hall, bring your mask.
In a memo to her staff on Wednesday, Aug. 11, City Manager Karen Osburn wrote that this is due to COVID-19 cases continuing to increase in Yavapai and Coconino counties, both of which are currently at high rates of community transmission based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorization.
“Just yesterday, there were four positive cases of COVID-19 reported by city employees. Effective immediately, we are returning to wearing masks and social distancing at all [indoor] city facilities,” she wrote. “If your department needs masks or sanitizing supplies replenished, please let me know.”
At any outdoor city-owned facility like the dog, skate or bike skills parks, masks are not required.
She said the city is hopeful the high transmission status and increasing cases will subside soon and they can return to normal operations. They will be monitoring cases, hospitalizations and other local data daily and will modify protocols accordingly.
Osburn went on to write that if any employee had an exposure — defined as 15 minutes or longer, 6 feet or less, with an individual that tested positive for COVID-19 — to please notify their supervisor and human resources immediately.
During the Tuesday, Aug. 10, Sedona City Council meeting, Osburn said that none of the four employees who recently tested positive are those who work at a front counter in any department where they might greet random people coming into City Hall. Any contact those staff members had with the public or fellow employees can be traced because they met with them by appointment. She also noted that this is not a council directive but rather an administrative one.
“Instead of it being up to individuals, I think the right thing to do to protect the public is to require masks on this campus,” Councilwoman Holli Ploog said.
To assist in the vaccination effort, the city has organized on-site vaccine clinics through Spectrum Health. Those will be held in the Vultee Conference Room on Thursday, Aug. 26, from 8 to 11 a.m. and Sept. 23 from 8 to 11 a.m. They will be administering the Moderna vaccine, which calls for the two doses, one month apart.
“Again, vaccines appear to be the best and most effective way to ward off COVID-19 and minimize illness should a vaccinated person contract the disease,” Osburn wrote.
