By Carol Vaughn —
The Eastern Shore Health District Friday afternoon announced results of a public testing event and testing at Accomack County’s two poultry processing plants last week.
Of 1,380 people tested at Eastern Shore Community College last weekend, 49 tested positive, 1,290 were negative, and 41 were inconclusive or invalid, according to a press release.
The health department is contacting all positive cases to provide them with instructions on isolation.
“We have attempted contact with all positive patients as of this release,” the release stated, adding that the department will start contacting those with negative results Monday.
Additionally, the health department received about 2,875 results out of 3,100 tests conducted last week at Accomack County’s two poultry processing plants.
Those tests showed an approximate 18% positive rate, with a total positive count of around 510, according to the health department.
It will take several days for those numbers to appear in the case counts on the Virginia Department of Health website.
Labs that processed the poultry plant tests are not connected to Virginia Department of Health electronic reporting, meaning each result has to be entered manually into the database.
Additionally, some of the employees tested do not live in Virginia.
At present, around 85 of the 510 positive results are reflected in the current case count for Accomack and Northampton counties.
The Eastern Shore Health District has a public information telephone number, 757-787-5880, for questions from residents about the pandemic.
