HELENA — Lewis and Clark County released new details on the first two COVID-19 cases in the county since April 9.
One patient is a 50-year-old man, the other is a 54-year-old man.
In the first case, the man is known to have had contact with a person known to have the virus in another Montana county. The other case can be traced back to a confirmed case in Idaho. The two cases are not related.
According to public health, both men isolated themselves when they began to see symptoms.
Contact tracing has identified five close contacts in each case. All the people involved have been ordered to isolate and quarantine.
In a news release on Friday, Health Officer Drenda Niemann said, "I want to emphasize these individuals did the right thing. As soon as they had symptoms, they stayed home and got tested. Our public health nurses worked quickly to do contact tracing and isolate and quarantine known contacts. These measures are taken to quickly contain the disease, protecting our community."
Niemann also urged members of the community to continue to practice good hygiene and physical distancing to help prevent the spread of disease.
