Rhode Island’s health director, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, has tested positive for COVID-19, the governor’s office said Saturday.
Alexander-Scott’s positive test “was identified through routine testing” earlier on Saturday and she is “asymptomatic and will continue working from home,’’ Josh Block, a spokesman for Governor Gina M. Raimondo, said in an email. Several members of Raimondo’s senior leadership team also will be self-quarantining, Block said.
They include Dr. Philip Chan, a consultant medical director for the health department who spoke at last Thursday’s news briefing with the governor and Alexander-Scott. Chan said he is scheduled to be tested Sunday morning.
New health guidelines say that someone who has had close contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19 can quarantine for 10 days, or seven days if they have a negative test on the fifth day and and have had no symptoms.
For people who last had contact with Alexander-Scott, that period would end on Thursday, Dec. 17.
The governor’s weekly news briefing which had been scheduled for Thursday has been moved to Friday.
-Health reporter Lynn Arditi can be reached at larditi@thepublicsradio.org
