A 23-year-old man from Florida was out of solitary confinement Saturday after being the first person in the state to test positive for a new and more contagious type of COVID-19, health officials said.
The presence of the new strain in Martin County was first discovered Thursday through a random sampling of COVID-19 tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said it is working closely with the Florida Department of Health to investigate more cases in the area and determine how widely the new strain has spread.
It was unclear when the man tested positive, but Martin County health official Carol Ann Vitani described the patient on Saturday as “very cooperative” in the following COVID-19 protocols. The person was asymptomatic and had not recently traveled outside the state.
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