Jill Schramm/MDN Ward County Sheriff Bob Roed speaks at a news conference Tuesday.

The number of positive COVID-19 tests in Ward County has dropped to 36 following re-testing required this past week because of malfunctioning equipment at the State Laboratory.

First District Health Unit also has announced additional upcoming testing, including a communitywide, two-day event planned for next week.

At a news conference Tuesday, Trinity Health reported four employees tested positive for COVID-19 in a mass testing of 482 employees in mid-May. An additional 10 employees who originally tested positive in the event were re-tested due to the equipment issue at the state. Nine have tested negative and one is still awaiting results.

Trinity employees testing positive have been without symptoms. Under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, they can return to work if they remain symptom-free for 10 days or, if they later develop symptoms, may return 72 hours after symptoms subside.

In a week to 10 days, Trinity will conduct a second phase of staff testing, according to Randy Schwan, vice president.

“We anticipate the collection of hundreds more tests, depending on the supplies we get from the Department of Health,” he said.

Also because of the re-testing, the Ward County Sheriff’s Department, which originally had three of 21 tests come back positive, now has no positives. At the jail, where six positives had been found in 45 tests, four required re-testing and those four came back negative.

Sheriff Bob Roed said the new results were a relief to his department and jail, which originally faced removing 22 people from the workplace as either positive or close contacts of positives. Only a small number of staff are affected by the remaining two positives at the jail, avoiding any significant disruption to operations, he said.

Another event on Friday will test remaining untested staff in the Sheriff’s Office, jail and juvenile detention center as well as jail inmates. Depending on test availability, facilities management staff who provide maintenance and cleaning also will be tested, along with election employees in the Auditor’s Office.

The testing will include members of small-town police departments in the area. First District expects to test about 450 individuals in this mass testing, including additional city and ambulance workers.

Roed said the jail has four cell blocks in the old jail portion that have been sanitized for isolating any inmates who might test positive. Staff have been wearing personal protective equipment for some time, and they would continue to be able to monitor isolated inmates with protection, he said. In addition, outside medical staff regularly visit the jail. Previously, some inmates showing symptoms were tested and found negative, he said.

The Minot Police Department, which had one officer test positive in the recent mass testing of healthcare and emergency workers, has not had to isolate any additional employees, Police Chief John Klug said.

The affected officer also did not need to re-test. Only individuals whose samples were tested using State Lab machines later determined to have malfuntioned required re-testing.

Lisa Clute, executive director at First District Health Unit, said, overall, re-tests were conducted with 19 people who were found positive in the 775 tests conducted at Trinity, Community Ambulance, Minot Police Department, Ward County Sheriff’s Department and the Ward County Jail.

“All of those individuals were contacted, released from our surveillance, as well as all of the individuals that we had identified as close contacts,” Clute said. “We had identified 157 close contacts of those 19 presumed positive cases. Those people were being contacted late yesterday afternoon and into the evening and also released from self isolation and self monitoring. So the good news is the concern of a significant increase in cases has been identified as not the case. The bad news is we feel bad that people were identified as positive cases.”

Clute said additional testing events are planned in the next seven to 10 days in Ward, Burke and Renville counties. A testing event in Bottineau also is in the process of being re-scheduled. In McClusky, Northland Community Health Center will conduct 150 tests in Sheridan County, where no cases have been identified at this time.

First District anticipates testing 1,000 individuals at a drive-through testing in Minot, tentatively set for next Tuesday and Wednesday. The event will be open to the public, with essential workers encouraged to take advantage of the testing.

“We do anticipate that we will have two days of drive-through testing occurring next week,” Clute said. “However, stay tuned for any of those details as we continue to gain confirmation of how that event will occur.”

Minot Mayor Shaun Sipma said the reduction in positive numbers in Ward County has prompted the city to move forward with a June 15 date for city facilities to re-open to the public. The police and fire departments would continue to have limited access. Council meetings will be open to the public beginning June 15 but with social separation. Plans are dependent on results of upcoming testing events.

Schwan said masks continue to be required at many of Trinity’s facilities. Trinity is contemplating a policy for more comprehensive masking at all facilities.

“The difficulty in that is we have limited masks to give out,” he said.

Schwan said fewer than 30% visitors to facilities where masks are only encouraged choose not to wear one. The high degree of compliance supports the movement toward a mandatory masking policy, he said.

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Hometown hero

Darcy Bjertness with North Dakota Facemask Warriors has been selected as this week’s Hometown Hero by Visit Minot and the Minot Chamber of Commerce.

She has organized more than 500 people on Facebook to sew more than 21,000 masks statewide.

Last week’s Hometown Hero was Natasha Marker, who set up a Facebook group to enable people to adopt a high school graduate and provide gifts and other special memories to replace those traditional memories lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.