Nye County deputy’s COVID-19 test turns out inconclusive

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday announced that the previous day’s report of a deputy testing positive for the new coronavirus was false but that a second detention center employee has tested positive.

The Sheriff’s Office on Monday announced that a deputy in its patrol division had tested positive. Sheriff’s Office spokesman David Boruchowitz told the Review-Journal on Tuesday that the case was actually one of three that were misreported to Nye County the day before.

“We were informed this morning that those results were flagged positive by the lab in error, and the result was actually inconclusive,” Boruchowitz said in a video new release sent Tuesday afternoon.

Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly announced the three false reports in an emailed statement Tuesday morning.

The Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday also announced that a second detention center employee has tested positive for the virus. The first case was announced Saturday, and both employees work at the Pahrump Detention Center, Boruchowitz said.

As a result of the first staff member testing positive, the Nye County jails in Pahrump and Tonopah were placed on lockdown. Boruchowitz said Tuesday that it is not a traditional 23-hour lockdown, and staff members are trying to release inmates from their cells “as many times a day as we can,” while still disinfecting common areas.

According to Tuesday’s news release, inmates are only being allowed out of their cells with their cellmate. All inmates and staff members at the jails are wearing personal protective equipment.

The sheriff’s office will test all of the approximately 240 inmates who are incarcerated at the Tonopah and Pahrump facilities. As of Tuesday afternoon, no inmates have been diagnosed with COVID-19, Boruchowitz said.

All detention center employees are also being tested, and the sheriff’s office has encouraged staff members’ families to be tested.

“We’ve been pretty progressive and aggressive on prevention,” Boruchowitz said Tuesday.

The Sheriff’s Office said that the employee whose test came back inconclusive is being scheduled for another test. That employee has remained home and has not been at work this week.

He is one of about 110 deputies and 200 total employees who work for the Sheriff’s Office, Boruchowitz said.

To prevent spread of the virus, all deputies will now be wearing masks while interacting with the public, the Sheriff’s Office said Monday.

The Sheriff’s Office has also adjusted deputies’ schedules “to minimize exposure with each other and to reduce the risk of spreading this among our agency,” Boruchowitz said in Monday’s release.

Schedules for detention center employees were also adjusted to reduce spread of the virus.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 29 positive cases reported in Nye County, and no deaths, according to the county’s website. Of those, 23 cases are in Pahrump, four are in Tonopah, and Amargosa Valley and Beatty each have one case.

The county is also reporting two people who have recovered — one in Pahrump and one in Beatty.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.