SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A second person has tested "presumptive positive" for COVID-19, Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced in a news conference from Springfield Thursday evening.
The patient is in their 20s and is from Springfield. They recently traveled to Austria. The patient is in quarantine at home and is expected to recover.
The patient went to a CoxHealth location away from the main hospital in Springfield. Health workers at the clinic knew the patient was coming before they got there, so staff was able to remove patients from the waiting room. Medical staff immediately put a mask on the patient and took them to a private room where the testing was done.
No other details about the patient were released.
Greene County Health Department Director Clay Goddard said his department is working to identify people who came in direct contact with the patient and will monitor them for symptoms.
The Missouri state health lab said the patient's test came back as a "presumptive positive." It's called this because the test was not FDA approved, but the results were being treated as a positive result. The test was processed at a health lab in Missouri, which received CDC approval to run COVID-19 tests. However, the CDC must certify the results at its labs before declaring a patient has tested positive.
Missouri's first "presumptive positive" was announced in a press conference Saturday night. The Centers for Disease Control has since confirmed the woman from St. Louis County did test positive for the virus.
As of Thursday evening, Missouri has tested 73 people for COVID-19, Gov. Parson said during the news conference. Two of the tests came back positive. Both of the cases are travel-related.
This story will be updated when more information becomes available.
