A health care worker in the Colorado State University Health Network has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a CSU Public Safety Team email.

According to the email, the test was administered on March 17 after the employee began showing symptoms midday. The employee was identified as a female Larimer County resident in her 30s. 

“The employee had not worked the three days prior to Tuesday and wore a mask while at work on Tuesday as a routine precaution,” the email read. “She had limited contact with a small number of patients.”

Over the last five days, the email said, public health officials have traced the employee’s contacts and identified individuals who may have had contact with her. Public health officials interviewed these individuals to learn more about their exposure and potential risk and advised them to stay home, self-monitor potential symptoms and possibly self-quarantine. 

The email quoted Lori Lynn, co-chair of the University’s pandemic planning response task force and associate executive director of the CSU Health Network, who said they have “no indication that the employee was exposed to the virus while working in the Health and Medical Center.”

“At this time, based on information from public health officials responding to the case and the routine deep cleanings already performed in the space multiple times a day, a closure of the Health and Medical Center is not warranted,” Lynn said in the email.

Unrelated to the employee’s symptoms, the email said, the employee’s department in the Health and Medical Center stopped seeing patients for routine visits on March 18. 

“A medical cleaning crew performs a robust cleaning of the facility to sanitize it multiple times a day, every day, including the area where the staff member was known to have been throughout the days before she became symptomatic,” the email read. “The center is using cleaners approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to kill this virus.”

The Health and Medical Center will continue to provide students with services remotely and will only see students in-person for emergent needs. A full list of the adjustments to their services is on the Health Network’s website.

Serena Bettis can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.