43,000 WRONGLY GIVEN COVID ALL-CLEAR BY LAB WHICH WAS CAUGHT NAPPING
THE UK’s health service has suspended the use of a Covid testing lab after an estimated 43,000 people were wrongly told they did not have the virus.
Experts have warned the blunder, at Immensa Health Clinic Ltd’s laboratory in Wolverhampton, could fuel a rise in cases amid fears those given false PCR results will have returned to schools and workplaces.
And it comes only nine months after Covid testers at the site were filmed wrestling, playing football and even taking a nap while Britain was mid-lockdown.
Between September 8 and October 12, thousands received negative PCR results despite testing positive on lateral flows.
The errors emerged following an investigation by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which said there were no technical issues with testing kits. However, a inquiry is underway to look at why and how the incorrect results were given.
NHS Test and Trace estimates around 400,000 samples have been processed through the lab but new samples are now being redirected to others.
The service is also contacting people who could still be infectious to recommend they take another test.
Speaking on a visit to a RollsRoyce factory in Bristol, prime minister Boris Johnson stressed that the blunder ‘doesn’t affect overall numbers’ but said it was being looked into.
Immensa, which was only incorporated as a company in May 2020, was awarded a £119million contract last October to urgently develop PCR tests ‘in line with test and trace requirements’. In a statement yesterday, Its chief executive Andrea Riposati said: ‘We are fully collaborating with UKHSA on this matter... We do not wish this matter or anything else to tarnish the amazing work done by the UK in this pandemic.’
Yesterday the UK government recorded another 44,932 Covid cases and 145 deaths.