Another 500 COVID-positive Sydneysiders told they were negative in text message

The SMS told all 950 recipients they were negative for the virus when, in fact, 486 were positive.

Sydney: Nearly 500 more people have wrongly been told their COVID-19 test result was negative in another error by a Sydney testing lab.

On Tuesday afternoon SydPath, the facility that operates pathology services at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, issued a statement to confirm that 486 of an additional 950 people who had been sent a text message “prematurely” had been validated as COVID-positive.

Blunder

The SMS told all 950 recipients they were negative for the virus when, in fact, 486 were positive.

These people were tested on December 22, 23 and 24. They have all since been issued their accurate test results.

“Once again, we are sincerely sorry for this error and acknowledge the significant impact it has had on those involved,” a statement from SydPath read.

“In order to contend with the major increase in volume of tests SydPath had recently moved from an automated system to a manual system to expedite the release of negative test results.

“Unfortunately during this manual process a simple data processing error was made which led to the wrong test results being released. We have reverted to our automated systems to ensure this type of error cannot happen again.”

NSW Health is urging people to only get tested if they have COVID-19 symptoms, are a household contact or have had a high or moderate risk of exposure, in an effort to ease pressure on testing clinics.

It comes as the NSW reported another 6062 infections on Tuesday, down 172 on the day before.

But the number of tests processed dropped again, down to about 93,500, compared to the 164,000 processed last Thursday.

Tuesday’s announcement was the third in a series of blunders from the Sydney pathology company in as many days.

On Sunday, SydPath confirmed that more than 400 people who initially received a negative result on Christmas Day were notified on Boxing Day they had actually tested positive.