California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is temporarily shutting down all of its field offices, according to records obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

In a message to DMV employees Thursday afternoon, the department announced the offices will be closed to “protect the health and safety of customers and employees during the coronavirus pandemic.”

In-office appointments are canceled.

Contact centers and the department’s Sacramento headquarters will still remain open during this time, and the DMV is working to get more employees to work remotely.

The decision comes amid fears of employees testing positive for COVID-19, a high rate of workers not showing up and a rapidly shrinking number of customers coming into offices.

Almost 1 in 4 DMV call center employees did not go to work on Wednesday after one of their colleagues tested positive for COVID-19 in Riverside. Another 13 percent of field office employees also did not go to work on Wednesday.

In response to the pandemic, the department had limited in-person customer visits to those who already had appointments scheduled. These actions have created an 82 percent drop in customers visiting the DMV on a typical day.