A Montgomery Township man is among eight new positive cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Montgomery County.
During a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Montgomery County Commissioner Valerie Arkoosh announced that a 59-year-old male from Montgomery Township had tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently hospitalized. Arkoosh added that Montgomery County is moving to a community spread model, so they will no longer utilize contact tracing to track down the source of the spread.
“At this point we can assume that there are people whose exposure cannot be traced back to a single point,” said Arkoosh, adding that officials have not seen sustained community spread, but they are expecting it. “This shift is not unexpected, and is consistent with a highly communicable disease.”
The positive test in Montgomery Township represents the first positive test within North Penn School District. It also follows a positive test for a 39-year-old male from Lower Salford Township that was announced on Tuesday.
As of the time of the 3 p.m. press conference, a total of 42 positive cases were being reported in Montgomery County, eight of them being announced since yesterday afternoon. An additional 512 county residents are in quarantine, according to officials.
Earlier on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine said that as of 12:01 a.m., Pennsylvania had a total of 133 positive cases and 1187 negative tests. At the center of those numbers is Montgomery County, with 42 presumptive-positive cases.
Both Levine and Arkoosh also announced that they will no longer refer to cases as “presumptive positive,” and the proper terminology is simply “positive”—meaning a respiratory sample was tested and confirmed the virus.
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