Antibody test kits report coming
WESTCHESTER » Two formal reviews of the process that led to Chester County’s problematic purchase of antibody test kits meant to determine the presence of the coronavirus in participants, including frontline workers who might have been exposed to the virus earlier this year, are both incomplete, according to county officials.
Both the county commissioners and the county Controller’s Office announced in September that they would be examining what had happened with a $20 million contract that left the county with test kits that it could not use because of their reported inaccuracies.
The county paid $13.29 million before it stopped receipt of the kits, officials said.
In separate statements earlier this week, the two offices said that their work on the reviews is still ongoing. Both the commissioners Controller Margaret Reif said they expected reports on the investigations would be completed in the coming year.
The no-bid contract between the county the firm that produced the test kits, Uwchlan-based Advaite, reportedly did not include a provision for a refund of the funds paid to date.
Test kits purchased from Advaite that were supposed to detect the presence of the virus in blood samples obtained through finger pricks to provide faster identification of possible infections, announced with great fanfare in the spring as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping across the county, were later found to provided an inordinate amount of positive results that may have been faulty.
The county has hired the Philadelphia law firm Brown McGarry Nimeroff, which specializes in commercial litigation and has an office in West Chester, to conduct its investigation, Meanwhile, the Controller’s Office is reviewing the matter using its in-house staff.
Reif said in September that her investigation into the purchase of the test kits would be different from an official audit of the program, which would have been procedurally more limited in scope.
She stressed that the procedure followed by the commissioners’ office in entering the contract with Advaite without the normal bidding process appeared proper at the outset, since it was related to the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The test-kit contract was intended to be paid for out of the $90 million the county has received in federal COVID-19 related grants.
The steps by the controller and the commissioners came after critical reports about the multi-milliondollar testing program intended to identify essential workers who had developed disease-fighting antibodies, which show up in the blood after COVID-19 infection.
In the first few weeks after testing began May 7, the tests produced results that appeared to be accurate. But two weeks later, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus antibodies began spiking to levels far above what was plausible, based on the prevalence of the virus in the area. The county eventually shelved the program June 2.