12 Huntsville Hospital Employees Test Positive

Huntsville hospital employees

And i'm pat simon.

Like we mentioned, we are following some big stories this morning.

We want to get you right out to our team coverage on coronavirus.

Waay 31's sierra phillips has the latest on huntsville city schools employees testing positive for the coronavirus.

But first, we start with waay 31's rodneya ross.

She is live outside of huntsville hospital -- where we are working to learn more after learning 12 employees within the hospital system tested positive for the coronavirus.

Rodneya?

Huntsville hospital system has 15-thousand employees... 12 -- across the system -- have coronavirus -- and 15 are self-quarantined after being around someone who was infected.

Huntsville hospital c-e-o david spillers told us six of those employees work here in madison county.

On monday -- we learned one staff member was diagnosed and staff working close with that person were self-quarantined.

Spillers said it's not having an impact on staffing at the hospital.

He also told us next week the lab here in huntsville should be able to start processing tests and getting results back quickly for hospital staff is a priority.

These tests would be a very quick turn around.

We would use these for the patients that are under investigation, possible rule outs those types of things.

Employees, those people who need a quick turn around.

We will coordinate that with our testing with diatherix.

Once the lab is up and running, they should be able to process 200 tests a day.

They will also continue to use the diatherix lab at hudson-alpha which is able to test the same amount each day.

Later today -- we'll get another update from local officials on the status of coronavirus in our community.

We'll hear from the c-e-o of crestwood hospital who announced earlier this week that two staff members were infected with the virus.

Reporting live in hsv, rr, waay 31 news.