BOTHELL — The coronavirus test result is negative for the family member of a Bothell High School employee whose possible infection prompted the school to close for two days, according to the Snohomish Health District.
The Bothell campus will reopen at the start of next week, district officials announced late Friday.
The worker’s relative became ill after international travel, prompting the school to close Thursday and Friday pending the result of the test. Classrooms were disinfected as a safeguard.
The relative of the school employee became ill Tuesday. The worker was not sick, but the family was quarantined.
Northshore School District leaders closed the school as a precaution due to the global outbreak of the new coronavirus, known as COVID-19.
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All Friday evening activities on the school campus had been cancelled.
“Our staff across the district are working to move or reschedule those activities. Also, we will make a decision on weekend activities as soon as possible on Friday,” Michelle Reid, Northshore superintendent, wrote in an email Thursday night.
According to the Washington State Department of Health website, results are pending on seven coronavirus tests statewide. Another 294 people are under public health supervision for possible exposure.
The state’s Public Health Laboratories in Shoreline planned to start doing tests this week for the COVID-19 virus. The Washington lab will start out doing up to 26 tests per day, six days a week, health officials said at a Thursday press conference.
Prior tests have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, with results taking five to seven days.
“I do not make this decision lightly,” Reid wrote of Friday’s school closure in a letter to Northshore families. The school district covers portions of King and Snohomish counties.
“We recognize that Public Health Seattle-King County did not recommend closing Bothell High School as they believed the risk of the coronavirus exposure to students and staff is low,” she wrote. “They shared with me that in the end, it was my call. Because I heard ‘low risk’ and not ‘no risk,’ I feel it is my responsibility to extend the closure through Friday.”
Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.
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