As of Monday, the Lee County Health Department had completed 22 tests for Coronavirus, with 21 coming back negative and one pending, according to county spokesperson Jamie Brown.
That number doesn’t reflect the total number of people tested, though, as many private providers who have conducted tests aren’t required to disclose them unless they come back positive. Lee County has announced three total positive tests, all of which apparently came from private providers. The last positive test was announced on March 31, and The Sanford Herald reported on April 3 that one of the patients had recovered.
Meanwhile, a meme making rounds on Facebook and other social media claiming that an employee at the Sanford Lowe’s Home Improvement had tested positive for the virus appears extremely dubious.
While Brown said the county’s policy is to not share any information about patients, including where they work, she did offer some insight the public can keep in mind when seeing these sorts of things.
“What I can share is through the contact tracing process, an employer would be notified if they had an employee test positive. I also know it was publicly reported last week that an employee at Lowe’s in Apex tested positive,” she said in an email.
The Apex case was reported by the News and Observer on April 3 after an announcement from the company. We’re not aware of any such announcement about the Sanford location, and we’re also unaware with any news outlet called “Lee County News.” The presence of an “install now” button on any news site should give readers pause as well.