REGINA — Several long-term care facilities in Regina went under tighter visitation restrictions due to outbreaks of COVID-19 announced yesterday, but public health officials say now that the increased numbers were due to a testing error at the Roy Romanow Provincial Lab.
Multiple positive cases of the virus were reported at seven facilities operated by the Saskatchewan Health Authority on Monday, which were then placed under level three restrictions.
Less than a day after the outbreaks were confirmed to the public, the SHA issued a statement that a testing error occurred at the provincial laboratory that may have affected the declaration of those outbreaks.
An instrument error reportedly led to 255 invalid tests between Aug. 18-22, said the SHA, with 206 re-tested samples returning negative results instead of previously recorded positives.
Officials are saying that 54 long-term care residents in Regina are among those who received false-positive results due to the error.
Dr. Fergall Magee, provincial head of laboratory medicine at the RRPL, said that the majority of the remaining 152 false positive tests were from the Regina area.
“We take this very seriously and are very concerned, and very sorry, that this has happened,” said Magee.
Public health is working to contact individuals affected by the error, to deliver accurate results and to arrange re-testing where needed.
Magee said staff discovered the malfunctioning machine during a control test at the lab, prompting the immediate retesting of all samples processed since the last control.
“We have taken immediate action to mitigate the cause of the error,” said Magee. “We have to carry out a root cause analysis, as we still have not worked out exactly what caused this [and] we’re in the process of doing that.”
SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said that since discovering the error, four of seven facilities have been taken off the outbreak list, with visitor restrictions lifted fully.
Extendicare Elmview, Regina Pioneer Village and the long-term care unit at Wascana Rehabilitation Centre remain declared as suspected outbreaks.
Livingstone said that at least one positive case has been confirmed at each facility, with pending tests results on other individuals exhibiting symptoms. At least two positive cases must be found before an outbreak is confirmed.
Dr. Rashaad Hansia, executive of integrated urban health at the SHA confirmed that no residents involved in the false outbreaks were relocated or hospitalized in the past few days, as they were not showing symptoms or in medical distress.
