Employee’s coronavirus report to shut SC solicitor’s office for two days
The 5th Circuit solicitor’s offices in the Richland County courthouse in downtown Columbia will be closed on Monday and Tuesday after an employee reported that he or she tested “presumptively positive” for the coronavirus.
The offices underwent a “deep cleaning” Saturday, 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson said Sunday afternoon.
About 100 people work in the solicitor’s Richland office on the courthouse’s third and fourth floors.
The Kershaw County branch of the solicitor’s office, which has about a dozen people, has been closed for more than a week. That office is in Camden, one of the “hot spots” of South Carolina’s coronavirus outbreak.
Gipson announced his office closing in an email that went out Sunday to his staff and courthouse department heads and judges.
On Friday, Gipson sent an email to all judges and county courthouse department heads letting them know that one of his employees had reported he or she had tested “presumptively positive” for COVID-19.
“The employee was in the building during the week of March 9, 2020, and was last in the building on March 16,” Gipson said in the email.
In the email, Gipson said his office has been trying to verify the “presumptively positive” test “from sources other than the employee, but have thus far been unsuccessful. Out of an abundance of caution, this message is being sent so that each one of you can take any/all precautions that you fit while we await the results.”
“Presumptively positive” means that a patient has gotten a positive coronavirus test from a private or public health state lab. Under former federal guidelines, a state test had to be confirmed by the Centers for Disease and Control before a state result was considered official. However, nowadays, state results are included in overall totals.
That said, Gipson made it clear in a Sunday interview that his office is trying to verify the employee’s test results with a doctor or lab.
“An employee has told us they have tested positive but we have not been able to verify that,” Gipson said. He said he was unable to reveal more about the employee due to patient privacy concerns.
On Monday morning, Gipson said, he and his staff will resume their efforts to verify what the employee told them.
Last Monday, March 16, S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Beatty, citing the coronavirus threat, ordered a halt to all jury trials in the 46 county courthouses across South Carolina.
Coronavirus is spread when people get close together, and jury trials can bring 100-200 people to a single courtroom for the initial winnowing of a jury pool. When a jury of 12-14 people is finally chosen, those jurors will spend perhaps days in a small room, and Beatty wanted to stop that.
Then on Thursday, Beatty ordered restrictions on all Richland County courthouse operations.
“It was determined that someone in the Richland County Courthouse has had indirect contact with the Coronavirus,” Beatty wrote in an order, which added, “Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, I have ordered court operations at the Richland County Courthouse to be streamlined. I believe this decision to be in the best interest of litigants, attorneys, employees, and the public. The order shall remain in effect until further notice.”
The case to which Beatty referred is not the employee in his office, Gipson said Sunday.
A special non-jury hearing on a multi-million dollar asbestos case originally scheduled for Monday has been called off.
On Thursday Beatty had issued an order allowing special Judge Jean Toal, a former S.C. Supreme Court chief justice, to hold a non-jury proceeding on Monday in the asbestos case. A lawyer in that case had indicated he did not want to proceed with the asbestos hearing. The hearing was called off Friday.
Richland courthouse generally attracts hundreds of visitors each day. The four-story building, which has a large underground garage, has criminal and civil courts, a probate office and family courts for divorces, adoptions and other matters. Other offices include mortgage records and land deeds.
(Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the asbestos case hearing originally scheduled for Monday in the Richland County courthouse has been called off.)
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhat you should know about the coronavirus
The coronavirus is spreading in the United States. Officials are urging people to take precautions to avoid getting sick, and to avoid spreading the disease if they do contract it.
Click the drop-down icon on this card for more on the virus and what you should do to keep yourself and those around you healthy.
What is coronavirus?
Coronavirus is an infection of the respiratory system similar to the flu. Coronaviruses are a class of viruses that regularly cause illnesses among adults and children, but this outbreak has spawned a new disease called COVID-19, a particularly harsh respiratory condition that can lead to death.
Health officials believe COVID-19 spread from animals to humans somewhere in China. It spreads among humans by physical person-to-person contact, including via coughs. That’s why health officials urge sick individuals to avoid contact with other people.
For more information, visit the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms are similar to the flu and include fever, coughing and shortness of breath.
How can I stop the spread of the coronavirus?
Wash your hands regularly with soap and water, and cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze.
If you develop symptoms similar to the coronavirus, you should seek medical attention. Stay home from work or school and avoid contact with others. It can take up to 14 days after coming into contact with the virus to develop symptoms.
COVID-19 is a new condition and there’s much about the disease we still don’t understand. For now, taking precautions is the best way to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
This story was originally published March 22, 2020 at 4:53 PM.