UPDATE: Health Department addresses retraction of first positive COVID-19 case in Greene County

Greene County Health Officer Pete Powers explained how incorrect information was issued in regard to Greene County having its first positive COVID-19 case.

"Greene County was reported to have one confirmed positive case of COVID-19 on Friday, 3/20/2020, that has since been retracted by the ISDH," Powers explained.

"Friday evening, the Greene County Health Department's nurse and health officer were contacted by our region's epidemiologist from ISDH with notice of the first positive case of COVID-19 from a patient who resides in Greene County. The patient was from Greene County, but had not recently been in Greene County."

Powers explained the test was performed at an undisclosed hospital that is outside of Greene County, and sent to an independent lab for processing.

"The Greene County Health Department's nurse started the task of contact tracing immediately. Part of her investigation included interviewing the nurses caring for this patient at the undisclosed hospital. The investigation concluded that the results from the independent lab of the COVID-19 test were negative. The ISDH epidemiology department was then notified of this discrepancy that our local health department nurse found. Further investigation by the ISDH with the independent lab found that the results were falsely reported to the ISDH as positive, when in fact they were negative. ISDH then retracted their previous reports that Greene County had a positive COVID-19 case. This patient normally resides in Greene County, but the hospital that performed the test, as well as the lab that processed and initially reported the test results, are outside of Greene County. I would like to commend our local health department nurse, Stacie Fonderhide, RN, for her investigation that discovered this error."