COVID-19 Outbreak Hits Port Manatee As 3 Workers Fall Ill

Updated: 11:25 a.m.

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — Three Port Manatee workers and a sixth Manatee County employee have tested positive for COVID-19 less than a week after a deadly coronavirus outbreak at the county administration building in downtown Bradenton killed two employees.

Three unvaccinated security team employees at Port Manatee recently tested positive for COVID-19, Virginia Zimmerman, Port Manatee’s director of communication and public relations, told Patch. Port Manatee has 80 total employees.

"One employee has returned to work; two others are at home awaiting negative test results and are expected back soon," she said.

Meanwhile, a sixth employee at the county administration building has contracted the virus, Nicholas Azzara, the county’s information outreach manager, told Patch.

Originally, five unvaccinated employees in the county’s IT department tested positive for COVID-19. Of these five, two died and four were hospitalized. Only one of those who died was hospitalized, Azzara said.

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The latest employee to test positive for COVID-19 is a member of the county’s CARES mortgage assistance program team. This CARES employee worked on the seventh floor, the same as the IT department, Dr. Scott Hopes, the county administrator and an epidemiologist, said in an interview with CNN.

This means all six cases resulted in hospitalization or death.

Another IT employee, a vaccinated 23-year-old vaccinated, came in contact with “patient zero,” but didn’t get sick, Hopes added.

“So, the clinical presentation gives me concern that we’re dealing with a very infectious variant that is quite deadly,” he told CNN.

Hopes told Bay News 9 that he believes that COVID-19’s delta variant is spreading through the county.

“My suspicion as an epidemiologist is that we’re dealing with a variant unlike what we had last year,” he said.

The Delta variant (B.1.617.2), which originated in India, is considered a “variant of concern” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not only does it spread faster and easier than other variants, according to the CDC.

With at least 70 confirmed cases, Florida is among the states with the highest number of delta variant cases in the United States, the Florida Phoenix reported.