False test results blamed for spike in Covid cases

Bath MP Wera Hobhouse has blamed false PCR results for causing the city’s highest-ever coronavirus rates.

The Liberal Democrat MP, inset, said she had received numerous reports from constituents who were affected by the false PCR results issue and said it cannot go “unanswered” anymore.

Bath and North East Somerset had one of the highest rates of Covid in the country this week and saw a record high.

Ms Hobhouse said on Facebook: “Bath and North East Somerset now has one of the highest Covid rates in England and the highest rate of Covid it has ever had.

“I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Secretary of State for Education regarding the suspension of testing at Immensa Health Clinic laboratory following an investigation by NHS Test and Trace, which looked into reports of people receiving

negative PCR test results after they had tested positive on lateral flow devices.

“My office has heard from a number of constituents, many of them with children at school, who received a series of positive lateral flow test results followed by a negative PCR test result.

“Many were advised at the time by Test and Trace and the UKHSA to follow the PCR test result and told that there was no requirement to isolate. This testing failure has directly impacted the health of Bath residents and it cannot go unanswered.”

Operations have now been suspended at the Wolverhampton branch of testing provider

Immensa Health Clinic Ltd, following an investigation into a huge volume of reports that people were receiving negative PCR test results after getting a positive result on a lateral flow test.

Cllr Kevin Guy, leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council, said the area was in a “perilous” situation amid the high Covid rates and called for people to exercise extreme caution.

In her letter to Health Secretary Sajid Javid, Ms Hobhouse demands a full investigation into why Immensa was not checked out fully by the government.

She said: “This is a grave error that may have had far-reaching consequences beyond the 43,000 people who received a negative test. Thousands of people infected were wrongly told not to self isolate and may have gone on to infect others and spread the disease, which would explain the huge jump in numbers in our region.

“Many constituents have described to me feeling a sense of guilt and deep concern that they may have unknowingly infected others based on the advice that they were given at the time.”

In her letter to the secretary of state for education, Nadhim Zahawi, Ms Hobhouse asked what steps she is taking to minimise Covid spread in schools seeing as the highest rates for our region are in school-aged children.

The age groups struggling with coronavirus infections are 10 to 14 year-olds, with an infection rate of 5,634.7 per 100,000 people.

Those aged between five and nine have an infection rate of 2,060.6, while the figure for 15 to 19 year-olds stands at 1,615.9.

Parents of school children also appear to be suffering, as the 40 to 44 year-olds and 45 to 49 year-olds have high infection rates too, with 1,717.5 and 1,633 respectively.