Do you have good data? 90 false-positive COVID cases question legislators

CTMirror.org, Keith M. Phaneuf

Has been updated

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 8:28 am

With more questions than the answers surrounding this week’s report, state health officials have misclassified dozens of nursing home residents as COVID-19 positive.

Legislative leaders pressured the governor of Nedramont for more details, including whether any of these “false positives” were sick or dead, but one health official said a response will be announced next week. Told.

“The state has an obligation to make everyone aware of who the 90 people are,” said Representative Tony E. Walker of D New Haven, co-chair of the Revenue Commission. “What is their health? Are there other cases we have not yet found?”

“We need to be a little worried if someone is at greater risk due to this recently discovered issue,” House of Representatives Jonathan Steinberg of D Westport, co-chair of the Public Health Commission, said. “. “Now we have reason to doubt if we have good data.”

Deer Draghi Ford, the agency’s agency for public health, said 144 people were first infected on Monday during a test conducted at the State Public Health Laboratory in Rocky Hill from June 15 to July 17. Announced that it turned out. The second run showed only 54 positive results after the inconsistency led health authorities to review these results late last week.

According to the Department of Public Health, these 90 “false positives” include 63 nursing home residents and 21 staff, 5 tenants in nursing homes, and 1 inpatient.

Health officials blamed the manufacturer of the trial for failing to notify Connecticut of a change in certain testing procedures by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Waltham, Mass., company. A corporate spokesman countered that this process was modified several times to help overwhelming healthcare institutions, but all the changes Company website..

In a statement written Monday, Gifford emphasized the state’s quick response after the error was discovered.

“We notified the health care facility for everyone who received a false-positive test result from the state institute,” she wrote. “… Thanks to the team’s responsiveness at the State Labs, adjustments have already been made to ensure the accuracy of future test results from this platform.”

However, the legislature noted that nursing homes usually assign COVID-19-positive residents to isolated areas in accordance with federal and state health guidelines.

And during the pandemic, many Connecticut home staff repeatedly reused scarce masks, smocks, and other protective clothing on these COVID-19 wings.

The legislature asked what happened to the “false positive” nursing homes assigned to these areas.

State health officials also don’t say whether Rocky Hill’s lab was the only one that encountered a false positive.

The state’s coronavirus testing program also collaborates with four private laboratories at Yale University, the Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, Genesys Diagnostics in Montville, and Sema4 in Stamford.

Dr Vivian Leng, Head of the Department of Health’s Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance Program, said he had notified affected facilities on Sunday and Monday to gather information about misdiagnosed patients. ..

“The impact of false positives is still under investigation,” Leon said. “Until all affected patients have been re-examined, the full effect is not known. Individual and prior and follow-up tests as well as information on potential exposures and outcomes are being collected.”

But Leon also warns that the incubation period for coronavirus is as long as 14 days, so it’s difficult to pinpoint who was exposed.

Still, neither Leung nor any other Lamont executive has mentioned whether any of the false positives have died since the June 15 test accident began.

Steinberg does not rule out the possibility of a Legislative Commission investigation into the issue of false positives.

“It’s a new story and I don’t have all the facts or the necessary understanding,” he said, adding that legislators will be looking closely at the details from the Lamont administration. “I can say [an investigation] That’s what we consider. “

Representatives from two state nursing home associations declined to comment.

Since the pandemic began in March, more than 48,000 people in Connecticut have been infected with the coronavirus, and more than 4,400 people have died of the disease. These totals include 8,870 infections and 2,831 deaths in residents of nursing homes alone.