Oregon School Employee Tests Positive for Coronavirus

An Oregon elementary school employee in Clackamas County has tested positive for the new coronavirus and may have exposed other people to it at work, health officials said Friday night.

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The announcement raised two key questions: how the patient contracted the virus since they have not traveled to any hot spots, and how many other may be infected as a result.

“We’ve been expecting this and we are prepared for it,” Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, said at an evening news conference.

The diagnosis has been labeled presumptive. The person tested positive at a lab in Hillsboro on Friday afternoon, but the results still have to be confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

In the meantime, the school worker is being treated in isolation at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center and authorities are scrambling to notify anyone who had close contact with them whom they could have been exposed to. Authorities plan to close Forest Hills Elementary School until they have a handle on the situation.

“I understand this news is concerning. However, I want to reassure you that our state and local authorities are responding quickly to the case,” Gov. Kate Brown said.

“Oregonians should know we are taking this very, very seriously.”

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