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Law360 (November 10, 2020, 7:10 PM EST) -- California's Mendocino County Superior Court has closed for a week after two separate COVID-19 exposures were reported the week of Nov. 2, the court announced Monday.
The court's two locations, in Ukiah and Fort Bragg on the coast of Northern California, about three hours to the west of Sacramento, will be closed from Nov. 9 through Nov. 13, according to a notice posted on the court's website.
The closure comes after the court said it "experienced two unrelated COVID exposures" during the week of Nov. 2. After consulting with the Mendocino Public Health Department, the court decided to close to protect the health and safety of visitors and court staff, according to the notice.
Any court staff that have had potential exposure to individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 have been told to get tested and to quarantine, the court said.
The court will reopen Nov. 16, and matters that were on the calendar for this week will be rescheduled, according to the notice.
The closure comes on the heels of reports of new cases of COVID-19 from federal courthouses in the Southern District of Ohio and the Northern District of Illinois last week.
In Ohio, a deputy U.S. marshal working out of the Potter Stewart Courthouse in Cincinnati tested positive Thursday, Chief Judge Algenon L. Marbley said in an order. The chief judge closed the courthouse to the public until Nov. 16 or until another order is issued.
And in Illinois, a court security officer in the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago tested positive, according to a letter from Chief Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer.
Judge Pallmeyer said that while the security officer was assigned to duties in the courthouse lobby, the officer was not assigned to the public lobby screening station. The lobby is cleaned throughout the day, with high-contact areas getting multiple cleanings, she said. The U.S. General Services Administration has been asked to clean those areas again, according to her letter. The courthouse hasn't been closed.
In September, the GSA's Office of Inspector General said COVID-19 response procedures undertaken at public buildings the agency oversees, including federal courthouses, could lead to increased exposure to and transmission of the virus. The GSA's Public Building Service didn't always receive timely notices of COVID-19 cases from its building occupants and didn't always provide timely notification of such cases, the OIG audit found.
Courthouses around the country have closed and reopened since the pandemic ramped up in March, with many shutting back down as cases continue to rise.
In August, the Central District of California, the most populous federal judicial district in the nation, announced that it is mostly closing its courthouses again to the public and that jury trials will continue to be postponed due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in the region.
That same month, a Georgia probate judge died after contracting the coronavirus. Chattooga County Probate Judge Jon M. Payne, 71, was an institution in the northwest Georgia community where he had served for almost five decades.
--Additional reporting by Hailey Konnath, Dave Simpson, Craig Clough and Rosie Manins. Editing by Emily Kokoll.
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