State Health Department says ‘a number of’ positive COVID-19 tests from Centre County not valid

• Anne Danahy/WPSU
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Anne Danahy is a reporter at WPSU. She was a reporter for nearly 12 years at the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pennsylvania, where she earned a number of awards for her coverage of issues including the impact of natural gas development on communities.
  
  She earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and a master's degree in media studies from Penn State.
  
  Before joining WPSU, she worked as a writer and editor at Strategic Communications at Penn State and with the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute before that.
  
  She hosts a Q&A program for Centre County's government and education access station and teaches a news writing and reporting class at Penn State.

 Min Xian / WPSU

A COVID-19 collection site at Mount Nittany Medical Center in State College, Pa.

Some of the positive COVID-19 test results the state Department of Health reported in Centre County Sunday are not valid, and patients whose results changed after retesting are being contacted, according to the department and Mount Nittany Health.

On Sunday, Centre County saw a 43-case jump, the largest single-day increase since the pandemic began. That brought Sunday’s total to 356 confirmed and probable cases.

But, on Wednesday, state Department of Health spokesman Nate Wardle said in an email that the department “has determined a number of the positive test results were not valid. We are reviewing those tests, retesting, and will change our data (as needed) to reflect the results of these tests in the near future.”

Nirmal Joshi, chief medical officer at Mount Nittany Health, said they closely monitor the results they get from the multiple commercial labs they use to conduct COVID-19 tests.

“When we received an unusually high number of positive results on Friday, we immediately alerted the Department of Health and implemented a plan to quickly re-test these individuals over the weekend,” Joshi said.

“On retesting, the Department of Health has determined that a number of the original test results are not valid,” he said. “These tests are being reviewed and data will be updated by the Department of Health. Patients are being contacted with their updated test results. Based on the volume of test results we have received to date, this was clearly an unusual pattern that prompted further follow up and investigation and we appreciate the collaboration with the Department of Health.”

As of Wednesday, there are 370 confirmed and probable cases in Centre County and 110,218 statewide.

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