“This morning there was some confusion,” County Judge Dan Hicks said Tuesday, explaining why 39 week-old positive COVID-19 results are just now coming to light in Scurry County.
Hicks said that the lab conducting tests on Snyder Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center failed to report the cases to Scurry County officials.
“Apparently the lab that Snyder Oaks tests were sent to didn’t contact the local health authority, the Health Department, nor my office,” Hicks said.
“They did, however, contact Snyder Oaks sometime yesterday.”
Hicks added that, upon receiving the results, Snyder Oaks immediately began implementing protective procedures for those who tested positive and those who tested negative.
“On Tuesday morning, June 2, the Scurry County Health Department was notified by the Department of State Health Services that, upon mandated testing of nursing homes in Texas by Governor (Greg) Abbott, 39 positive results were received from Snyder Oaks Care Facility,” Hicks wrote in a press release. “These positives were composed of both nursing home staff and residents. As of the time of this press release, no actual test results have been received by the Scurry County Health Department, only an initial positive count.”
The release goes on to note that “all or most” of the new positive results are asymptomatic.
A new series of tests has been ordered and results are expected by Thursday.
Hicks said the new results will not appear on the county’s official totals until they are confirmed by the second round of testing.
The results come after eight new positive COVID tests were reported Monday, six of which were Scurry County Sheriff’s Department employees, one a Snyder Fire Department employee and one a Snyder Police employee.
Those public servants haven’t been quarantined and are still on the job, Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said Monday.
“We have to be out there,” Wilson said. “This is kind of a fine line to walk, but obviously we’re a small community. We’re a small office so we’re just very limited with our dispatchers and our deputies and we’re just trying to do the best we can at this point with the people we have. Keep everybody working and answer phones.”
Wilson said inmates from other counties housed at the Scurry County jail have been sent back to their home counties.
“Just for precautionary purposes, all of the out-of-county inmates that we were housing, I have sent them back to their respective counties to minimize our inmate numbers in the jail.”
Wilson added that the 69 inmates tested were negative for the virus.
In addition, a Nolan County resident who works in Scurry County was tested and received a positive result. Since that person is not a local resident, the result isn’t included in Scurry County’s official results.
The latest numbers, released Tuesday are:
Tests administered: 847
Pending: 87
Negative: 688
Positive: 70 (includes Snyder Oaks positives)
Recovered: 2
Total positive year-to-date: 72
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