San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg harshly criticized federal health authorities on Monday after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a patient from quarantine who later tested “weakly positive” for COVID-19.
The CDC confirmed that a person being treated for COVID-19 was released from a federally mandated quarantine as a result of a positive COVID-19 test, according to a Sunday press release from the City of San Antonio. The CDC had said it is retesting an individual who was released from isolation at a local healthcare facility on Friday “because the individual met the criteria for release, including two negative test results” but was isolated again “after a pending, subsequent lab test came up positive for the virus that causes COVID-19”, according to the city’s statement.
Local officials said at a press conference on Monday that the person is now isolated again after being “out in the community for slightly over 12 hours” and urged state and federal officials not to release the remaining evacuees quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland until they were tested a third time for the new coronavirus.
