The Augusta office building that houses Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection was closed Tuesday for a deep-cleaning after an worker there tested positive for COVID-19. But the union that represents state employees is demanding that the state keep the Ray building on the campus of the old AMHI hospital closed longer.
“One day in general to close an office is not enough,” says Alec Maybarduk, executive director of the MSEA-SEIU,
Maybarduk says that because the employee who contracted the virus had been in the building recently, the state should allow more time for contact-tracing and other efforts to limit communal spread.
“We also think that they need to allow time for an individual to asses whether they are becoming symptomatic and they shouldn’t be rushing to reopen offices until the have a better assessment as to what the full level of infection may have been,” he says.
It’s part of a troubling pattern, Maybarduk says, of less-than-rigorous response to the virus, and haphazard efforts to allow more employees to take leave or to work from home.
State officials did not return requests for comment. In an email to building workers Monday night, DEP Commissioner Jerry Reid said officials believed the risk of exposure was extremely low.
This story has been corrected to indicate that Alec Maybarduk is the executive director, not the president, of the MSEA-SEIU.