Lane County Public Health announced Thursday they have administered more than 40,000 COVID-19 tests to residents. At the same time, health officials are doing some rumor control around testing.
Officials said one false claim is that testing is being used “to shut down the county or impose greater restrictions.” Lane County Public Health insists the opposite is true. Testing helps identify cases and contain them to limit community spread.
Public Information Officer Jason Davis relayed one rumor:
“That individuals have gone to some of our testing events and decided not to get tested but they still received a positive test result in the mail.”
Davis said notifications of test results are never sent by mail. He says the false claim has been commonly used on social media nationwide- with the exact language. “So, we suspect this is an intentional piece of mis-information that’s being proliferated.”
Davis said public health has scanned their records to be sure that such claims are categorically false.