HARRISBURG – Today, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that on Thursday evening, he received his second negative PCR test since his diagnosis.
The governor had a positive PCR test on Tuesday and negative PCR tests on Wednesday evening and Thursday evening.
It appears the positive PCR test on Tuesday came at the end of the course of his virus. Throughout the course of the virus, the governor was asymptomatic.
“I extend my deepest gratitude for all of the well wishes sent to Frances and me,” said Wolf. “We appreciate the prayers and support of Pennsylvanians and count ourselves lucky that my course of the virus was asymptomatic.
“I will continue to quarantine and carry out my duties to the commonwealth from home in the coming days, following CDC and PA Department of Health guidelines for asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.”
“As part of routine surveillance testing, Gov. Wolf tested positive on a Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test on 12/8, and has not been experiencing symptoms,” said Dr. Sharon Watkins, State Epidemiologist with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Co-Incident Commander for the COVID-19 response.
“These tests are considered the gold standard among tests for COVID-19. These highly specific and sensitive tests can pick up small amounts of the virus.
“Two negative RT-PCR tests since that time indicate that it is possible that Gov. Wolf was at the end of his infectious period when the first test was conducted.”