San Antonio mayor completes precautionary quarantine, warns against testing ‘in’ to Thanksgiving

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg emerged from his 14-day quarantine after being exposed to a person diagnosed with COVID-19 with a holiday warning for residents.

Nirenberg went into self-isolation on Nov. 10 and stayed under quarantine until this past weekend. Though the mayor tested negative for the virus, he continued to isolate for precautionary reasons, which is recommended by the CDC.

“Some COVID tests will return a positive reading only if you have enough of the virus in you at the time of the test,” he said. “Others, like rapid antigen tests, aren’t as sensitive as others on he market, which means you could get a false negative.”

The mayor explained this is the reason people can’t “test out” of quarantine or “test in” to events like Thanskgiving.

“If you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 recently, you might get a negative test result on Tuesday and be contagious on Thursday,” he said in a video shared across his social media platforms on Sunday. “Remember, you don’t need to show symptoms to be contagious.”

The City of San Antonio sent an emergency alert to cellphones on Friday after 936 new cases were reported, urging people to avoid unnecessary outings and stay away from social gatherings. Local health officials are asking families to not gather with members outside of their immediate household on Thanksgiving.

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | [email protected] | @maddyskye