Covid Testing Companies Sued Over Alleged ‘False Or Inaccurate Results’
As NBC News reports, Chicago-based company Center for Covid Control is already under investigation by multiple states and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. On Wednesday, Minnesota filed a lawsuit against that company as well as another firm, Doctors Clinical Laboratory.
Federal documents obtained by NBC News allege that a Covid testing company with 300 pop-up locations nationwide and its associated lab lacked adequate refrigeration and failed to put patients鈥 names on specimens or report test results to state officials. The Chicago-based company, Center for Covid Control, is already under investigation by multiple states and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. The attorney general of Minnesota sued the company Wednesday alleging that it 鈥渆ither failed to deliver test results, or delivered test results that were falsified or inaccurate.鈥 (Strickler, 1/19)
Minnesota鈥檚 top law enforcement official filed suit against two Illinois-based companies Wednesday over the results of COVID-19 tests he said were often slow to arrive and not accurate. Attorney General Keith Ellison is seeking an injunction and financial penalties, including restitution for affected residents, against Center for Covid Control and Doctors Clinical Laboratory. Their tests were offered at eight sites in Minnesota. The complaint alleges people failed to get timely results or any at all. Others said they received results for tests they didn鈥檛 take. (1/20)
In other news about covid testing 鈥
The Biden administration has launched their website to get at-home rapid COVID-19 tests to more Americans. If you signed up to get your tests, they should arrive at your doorstep within two weeks. But with winter weather hitting the D.C. region, we verified: Are the tests impacted when left outside in the cold? Here's what we learned. (Spaht and Gregory, 1/20)
A PCR test is often considered the gold standard for detecting coronavirus infection. It's the test some employers want employees to take before returning to work after having Covid-19, and the one some people scramble to schedule to know whether they can travel or stop isolating. But experts say the PCR test isn't the best one for every situation. PCR -- or reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction -- tests can detect small amounts of the coronavirus' genetic material in a specimen collected from a human. The test then works by amplifying, or making copies of, that genetic material if any is present in a person's sample, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Rogers, 1/19)
New Mexico is sending free COVID-19 home tests to low-income and underserved neighborhoods, but some school officials say a nationwide shortage of tests is putting them in a bind as they work to meet state requirements aimed at keeping students and staff in the classroom. The state Health Department announced this week that more than 400,000 tests have been secured so far. (Bryan, 1/19)
On Monday Jan. 3, four hours before South Windsor was to begin distributing its limited supply of at-home COVID test kits, police notified Town Manager Michael Maniscalco that cars were already lining up outside Rye Park. Maniscalco聽wondered how the state ended up in such a precarious position. Hours-long waits for COVID tests had become common as people flooded the state鈥檚 scattered testing sites 鈥 many waiting in vain, anger building. At a testing site in Bristol, someone threatened to pull a gun. (Altimari and Brown, 1/20)
