North Carolina DMV headquarters closed after employee tests positive for coronavirus
Update: The DMV headquarters reopened the morning of May 12.
The state Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters on New Bern Avenue was evacuated and closed Thursday after an employee there tested positive for coronavirus.
The employee, who was last in the building on Wednesday, worked on a floor that is not open to the public, said spokesman Steve Abbott. Public health officials from either the state or the county will try to track down anyone who might have come in contact with the employee while at work and provide them with information about COVID-19 and its symptoms.
Abbott said the floor where the employee works normally has about 80 people on it, but it’s not clear how many have been at work lately.
“A lot of them weren’t there because they were working at home,” Abbott said.
The most public part of the DMV headquarters complex, the license plate agency on the ground floor of the main building, has been closed for several weeks as a precaution during the coronavirus outbreak. DMV also has closed more than half of its 115 driver’s license offices statewide and is operating the rest on an appointment-only basis.
It’s not clear how long the two headquarters buildings will be closed. The DMV will hire a contractor to clean and disinfect the buildings before employees are allowed back in, Abbott said.
Abbott said he couldn’t say how the work of the DMV will be affected by the shutdown. Some employees were already working from home, he noted, “But there are probably things that can only be done in the building.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 5:12 PM.
