Florida cuts ties with lab over failure to report 75,000 coronavirus tests
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ORLANDO, FL (WESH) — The Florida Department of Health announced Tuesday that it has cut ties with Quest Diagnostics after the state said the lab failed to report nearly 75,000 coronavirus tests that date back to April.
The state said that while the results were withheld from the state, people who tested positive were notified of their test result.
“Therefore, while significant, this unacceptable dump of test results is a data issue and does not impact the health of individuals or the spread of COVID-19 in Florida,” the state said in a news release.
Quest Diagnostics is a large, nationwide lab that provides testing at private sites, as well as performing limited testing through the state of Florida.
The state called the backlog of tests from Quest a “failure to follow Florida law and report all COVID-19 results in a timely manner.”
“To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible. I believe that Quest has abdicated their ability to perform a testing function in Florida that the people can be confident in. As such I am directing all executive agencies to sever their COVID-19 testing relationships with Quest effective immediately,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
The Department of Health said that when the data from Quest is factored in, there were 7,643 new cases in the state on Tuesday. Without the data from Quest, the new cases Tuesday stands at 3,773.
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