Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has revealed that it took eight days for her family to receive the results for their COVID-19 tests.
“We FINALLY received our test results taken 8 days before,” the mayor tweeted early Wednesday. “One person in my house was positive then. By the time we tested again, 1 week later, 3 of us had COVID. If we had known sooner, we would have immediately quarantined. Perhaps the National Guard can help with testing too.”
Speaking to 11Alive, Nancy Nydam, the state Department of Public Health spokesperson, said that the current turnaround could not be helped.
“The large commercial labs such as LabCorp and Quest have advised of increased turnaround times – here in Georgia and around the country,” Nydamsaid in an email. “We can’t control that.”
Mayor Bottoms announced on July 6 that she had tested positive. She said that so far, she remains asymptomatic. Her husband and one of her four children also tested positive for the virus.
“COVID-19 has literally hit home,” the mayor wrote on Twitter. “I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive.”
On June 5, Bottoms hosted a news conference filled with a room full of police, fire Chief Randall Slaughter, three Atlanta City Council members, media and family members of 8-year-old shooting victim Secoriea Turner.
An executive order signed by Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Kathleen E. Toomey advises that anyone who comes within six feet of an affected person for 15 minutes or more will have to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days.
Bottoms will now have to isolate herself for 14 days and work state and public health officials to track individuals she may have come into contact with two days before her positive test sample.
