LARGO, Md. — It looked like business as usual at the Largo branch of the Motor Vehicle Administration on Tuesday. Customers who had appointments waited in line for their turn to go inside all throughout the day.
Yet employees said things don't feel normal, given the news that five of their co-workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in the month of October.
"It’s hectic," Walter Powell, a customer agent at the Largo MVA, said. "People are terrified to go to work."
WUSA9 reached out to MVA for a comment, and were told the health and well-being of MDOT MVA employees and its customers are their top priority.
"MDOT MVA was recently notified by five employees at the Largo branch office that they have tested positive for COVID-19," MVA said in a statement to WUSA9. "The employee with the most recent confirmed case tested positive on October 10. This employee last worked in the Largo branch on October 3."
The statement also said that the facility had been disinfected following the first notification on Oct. 5, in accordance with CDC standards, and that another deep cleaning has been done on Oct.12."
Powell said Oct. 4 was the day he first began hearing from his co-workers that some staff had tested positive. And by the end of the week, Largo MVA staff began hearing rumors that an employee had died.
"We found out we lost an employee on Friday," Powell said. "And there are four others who are currently fighting this disease, and one of them is currently in ICU."
Powell came across the news of his co-worker's death on social media, and he alerted his boss.
"I actually discovered the employee's passing because something came across on the person's Facebook page from one of his friends," Powell said. "[My boss] wasn't aware of it."
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union representing MVA employees, says Governor Hogan's administration hasn’t done enough to protect its members.
“Throughout this pandemic, the Hogan administration has failed his employees at each turn," AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran said in a statement to WUSA9. "His administration didn’t supply enough PPE, they didn’t fix or upgrade ventilation systems, they won’t compensate employees coming to work, unable to socially distance. The administration won’t test all state employees returning to work and has failed to be transparent about how many of our brothers and sisters are getting sick with COVID-19."
MDOT MVA said contact tracing is occurring to determine who the employees who tested positive may have been in contact with. Any employee who may have been exposed has been asked to self-quarantine.
Powell said he was exposed to two of his co-workers who tested positive.
"Thank God my test has come out negative," he said. "I am one station away from one. One of the other people I actually sat in a break room with and had a break. So while we're having a break, there's no mask on."
MDOT MVA said that customers and staff are required to wear face coverings and participate in a brief health screening and temperature scan in order to enter an MDOT MVA facility.
But Powell said he’s still concerned about customers being exposed.
"We provide driver's license services, we provide vehicle services, so we have to interact with customers," he said. "There's no way around us doing a job."