There are 46 people in mandatory quarantine in Genesee County, many of them, according to the Health Department, because an employee of a local business went to work while ill and later tested positive for COVID-19.
In keeping with privacy laws, the Health Department is releasing no further information about the person or where that person worked.
The department received reports from state labs over Saturday, Sunday and Monday, of 10 more local residents testing positive for the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
There has been a total of 32 positive cases in Genesee County since the first positive test locally, reported on March 17. There are currently 23 people in mandatory isolation because they tested positive, eight people have recovered, and there has been one death.
Four of the people with positive test results over the weekend were previously on mandatory quarantine.
Of the 10 new cases, all 10 are under age 65. We tried to find out how many were under age 40 and under age 30 and a spokesperson for the department declined to releases that information citing privacy concerns.
There are currently no local residents hospitalized because of the coronavirus.
Public Health Director Paul Pettit, in light of the fact a person who later tested positive went to work sick, reiterated the need for people to pay attention to warnings about COVID-19.
“When you are sick, stay home from work,” stated Pettit, “A significant increase in the number of mandatory quarantines being reported today is due to a symptomatic person going to work at a local business. Also, if you are part of gatherings and even one person tests positive everyone in close contact to the positive will be placed on mandatory quarantine. We’re all in this together, we need to make sacrifices in the short term to get us through this challenging time.”
The health department indicates the sick person only had close contact with fellow workers and, besides the ones already identified and placed in mandatory quarantine, the department is working with the company to identify further individuals who might need to go into quarantine.
