MARSHALL (KMHL) – Numbers from the community wide COVID-19 testing are showing a three percent positive rate from tests that were conducted at Avera Marshall’s Carlson Street location.
According to a press release from Avera Marshall, 1,019 tests were run during the three-day community testing June 17-19 at the Avera Marshall Carlson Street location. Officials say 32 tests were positive for COVID-19.
“This sharp rise of cases in Lyon County over the last few weeks warranted this expanded community testing. This effort was important to further identify people in the area with COVID-19 – those with symptoms and those without – and ask them to isolate themselves to prevent transmission in households and communities,” said co-lead for community testing for the Minnesota Department of Health, Joni Scheftel.
After the first day of testing results were near 7 percent positive for the virus. Scheftel said the decrease in the rate of positive cases over the three days was likely due to symptomatic people and those with a known exposure being more likely to test on the first day making them more likely to test positive.
“The interesting thing however was about 50 percent of them [those who tested positive] were asymptomatic,” Avera Marshall Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Meister told Marshall Radio Tuesday. “Those are the people who have zero symptoms, they feel great, or they have a mild symptom.”
Because of that, Meister is continuing to encourage people to wear their masks.
Guidance from the Minnesota Department of Health encourages those who test positive for COVID-19 to stay home and self-isolate until all of the following are met:
- You feel better. Your cough, shortness of breath, or other symptoms are better.
- It has been 10 days since you first felt sick.
- You have no fever for the last three days, without using medicine that lowers fevers.
MDH also advises those without symptoms who test positive to self-isolate for 10 days from when they were tested.
