The Northeast Tri-County Health District announced that a person tested for COVID-19, who was affiliated with the Colville School District, has tested negative for the disease.

The news came late on Thursday night, after four days of waiting for results. The Colville School District closed for three days to disinfect schools as a precaution while the community awaited test results from the state Department of Health’s lab in Shoreline.

The state lab still had a backlog of tests as of yesterday, a DOH spokeswoman said. This led to the isolation of individuals tested, as well as their close contacts, while they waited for results. Spokane County learned Thursday that a Gonzaga-affiliated individual also tested negative for COVID-19.

As of Thursday night, COVID-19 has led to 11 deaths in Washington state and 70 confirmed cases. The Department of Health will update those figures this afternoon.

The novel coronavirus has made it east of the Cascades, with the first case confirmed in a Grant County resident on Thursday. The person is listed critical condition at Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee. That hospital has tested eight patients so far. Four of those tests were negative, and the results are still pending for three other people.

Central Washington Hospital, which is a part of Confluence Health, is sending its test to the University of Washington lab, which began testing this week.

The UW lab can test as many as 1,500 specimens a day or 750 people per day, John Wiesman, state secretary of health said Thursday. The state lab is also adding additional equipment and staff to the Shoreline facility. The state lab has the capacity to run 200 specimens for 100 people per day. Private lab companies will begin testing for the disease in the coming days and weeks.

Other counties in northeast Washington have sent samples to UW for testing this week, including two people in Okanogan County, one person in Adams County. Chelan-Douglas Health District has sent tests for two patients to the state health lab in Shoreline. The Chelan-Douglas Health District activated its emergency response today.

Grant County tested one other individual for COVID-19 this week, and those results came back negative. The county is not investigating any other people for the disease currently.

Lincoln, Spokane, Pend Oreille, Stevens and Ferry counties do not have any pending tests for COVID-19, according to health district officials and news releases as of now.

This story is developing and will be updated.