Mass. woman along on St. Raphael trip tests positive for coronavirus

Updated at 10:42 p.m.

The R.I. Department of Health says a third person on a trip organized by a Pawtucket school is a presumptive positive for COVID-19.

PROVIDENCE – A third participant on a school trip to Europe last month has tested a presumptive positive for the coronavirus, Rhode Island health officials said on Tuesday.

The person, a woman in her 20s, is a resident of Massachusetts, but traveled to Italy on a trip organized by Saint Raphael Academy in Pawtucket in February.

The woman, whose case is considered a presumptive positive because it hasn’t yet been verified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was tested by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. She has not been hospitalized.

Another person, a woman in her 30s who lives in Rhode Island, was tested at the R.I. Department of Health’s state laboratory and the results were negative.

- Advertisement -

The CDC has confirmed that a man in his 40s who was on the trip to Italy has COVID-19, and a third person, a teenage girl, is a presumptive positive. Both are Rhode Island residents.

State health officials say a total of four tests are pending at the R.I. state health lab, and about 60 people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus are self-quarantining.

Six tests have returned negative results.

Thirty-eight students and chaperones were along for the trip to Italy from Feb. 14–22.

Earlier on Tuesday, RIDOH said the teenage girl, a student at Saint Raphael, was in school until Feb. 27, when she was sent home sick. She was tested on March 1 after the man in his 40s, a staff member at the school, tested positive for the virus.

Saint Raphael remains closed.

Achievement First Academy, where the woman in her 30s works, closed its Providence and Cranston campuses on Tuesday but say they will reopen on Wednesday.

(Updates fourth paragraph to ADD negative test result.)

No posts to display