Weizmann slams MoH for false coronavirus testing allegations
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFA nursing home worker and a medic put on personal protective equipment while preparing to transport a patient into an ambulance at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the long-term care facility linked to several confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, in Kirkland, Washington, US.(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Health Ministry falsely accused the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot of reporting false test results for the novel coronavirus on Saturday.On Friday evening, 29 elderly patients tested negative for the coronavirus at their respective hospitals after previously testing positive at their geriatric facility. Although that was supposedly processed at Weizmann, the institute claimed that most of those tests were not performed there.The Health Ministry updated on Saturday night that it is "working together with the Weizmann Institute in full coordination and cooperation for success in the joint national mission."A spokesperson for the institute told Israel's Kan News that the lab followed the Health Ministry’s protocols and blamed the reported five false positives that did occur in their facility on guidelines specifying that borderline test results be determined positive.“The Weizmann Institute of Science has made available to the Ministry of Health an advanced laboratory, which operates under the sole supervision and responsibility of the Health Ministry. According to clear guidelines from the Health Ministry, tests that are borderline – as they were in these cases – are determined to be positive.”On the state of the falsely diagnosed patients, he said that “respiratory patients who have been transferred to the hospitals are now in isolation, and the appropriate place for continued hospitalization is being examined so that they do not become infected in the event that some are not sick.”An official source called the mistaken test results a “scandal,” according to Kan. “Intubated geriatric patients were moved from a set place to a hospital and exposed to bacteria and possibly also to the coronavirus," said the official.Idan Zonshine contributed to this report.
