CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A worker at a Corpus Christi post office testing positive for COVID-19, the novel strain of the coronavirus, has health officials reaching out to anyone who made contact with him.
“(The health department will) find out who all (the infected worker was) with, and also find out if they made any visits to any homes," said Corpus Christi-Nueces County Public Health District Director of Public Health Annette Rodriguez. "We can contact those individuals as well so everybody can know that they have possibly come in close contact with someone COVID19 positive.”
The worker testing positive at the Lamar Park Post Office on Everhart near McArdle has some of its customers also concerned about their safety.
"I hadn’t heard that," said Linda Markert, who was planning to mail a package, when KRIS 6 told her about the positive test. "Yeah, that concerns me. I think I’ll wait (to mail her package). I don’t think I’ll go in."
Markert wears a mask over her mouth and nose in hopes of avoiding COVID-19, but she still did not go inside the post office.
"I don’t want to get it," Markert said. "I don’t want to be sick. I don’t want to make anybody else sick."
People who are concerned they live on the infected worker's postal route worry the coronavirus could be on letters and packages he delivered.
Rodriguez isn't concerned about that.
“The studies show that this virus can stay on surfaces, but it’s mainly steel or plastics or those types," she said. "We don’t really concern ourselves too much with the paper. So we’re not looking at that right now, but we have taken it into consideration.”