Most of the patients who tested for the coronavirus at Aaron E. Henry Community Health Center the past couple of weeks did not have any symptoms.
Approximately 40 to 100 individuals are tested per day, according to Aaron E. Henry primary care physician, Dr. Sheon Mendoza. AEH is testing for free in Clarksdale, Tunica, Batesville and Coldwater.
Mendoza said a high amount of individuals show up for tests in Clarksdale.
“We’ve done testing twice a week last week and we’re going to do twice this week,” Mendoza said. “While we’re finding most people are testing negative, we’re getting about five percent of people that we’re testing positive. What’s concerning about that is everybody that’s testing positive thus far has no symptoms. So people are coming in to get tested, they’re not at risk for having it. They’re just people who want to be tested and find out that they’re positive after they do the test. That’s kind of alarming because these people can be out spreading it and not know it.”
Doctors who care
Mendoza said only two of the positive tests had symptoms of COVID-19 and they were not from Coahoma County. He added he did not quarantine individuals who did not haves symptoms after testing.
He also said many people had mild symptoms and dismissed them.
“When we test them, we ask them if they had symptoms before we test them, so we know who’s had symptoms and who didn’t,” Mendoza said. “We ask them that to know whether we need to quarantine them or not until we know the results. If they’re having symptoms and they’re at risk of having them, then we quarantine them.”
Mendoza said there has not been the opportunity to determine the age bracket or race of those who tested positive.
“We haven’t had the opportunity to do such things because if you’re testing 100 people, you have to call 100 people and tell them their results. Some of them aren’t our patients, so that takes quite some time,” he said.
The next step
If someone tested positive and does have a primary care physician or has a physician at Aaron E. Henry, Mendoza will continue to communicate with that person.
“If they’re testing positive and they’re not patients that come to our clinic, we encourage them to call their regular doctor and inform them and let them help get off of quarantine and isolation when the time comes,” Mendoza said.
He encouraged those who tested positive to self-quarantine and prevent others from contracting the coronavirus.
“We can’t force people to quarantine,” Mendoza said. “We can encourage them to quarantine and the way we do that is by pointing out to them that if you don’t quarantine yourself, you’re going to infect your loved ones first.”
Testing was expected to continue at Aaron E. Henry in Clarksdale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday.
