Lab mix-up nearly doubles coronavirus cases reported in one North Carolina county
A mid-sized county sandwiched between Durham and Greensboro in central North Carolina reported 39 cases of the coronavirus as of Monday.
Why then, was the number of cases in Alamance County on the state health department’s website nearly double that?
A blunder at a private lab is to blame, officials in Alamance County clarified on Facebook Monday afternoon.
“The (N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’) map is reporting an unusually high increase in COVID-19 cases on April 13,” the Alamance County Health Department said in a post. “This increase is due to a large batch of LabCorp test results with no addresses listed.”
Tests with unknown addresses, officials said, incorrectly defaulted to Burlington, North Carolina — the county seat.
LabCorp, a global network of lab testing facilities, is headquartered in Burlington. It’s also one of a few companies certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test for COVID-19.
The lab made coronavirus tests available to healthcare providers in early March, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Two weeks later, it expanded testing capabilities to allow for more than 20,000 tests per day — twice the initial output, according to the Charlotte Observer.
But somewhere along the way, tests with no known address began to emerge.
The default address for those unknown test results was listed as the testing facility’s location in Burlington — meaning they were also incorrectly reported to the Alamance County Health Department, officials said.
“The Health Department has notified partners at Labcorp, they have identified that the results are for another state and are working to reassign those results to the proper jurisdiction,” officials said on Facebook. “This may take some time. We apologize for any concern or distress this may cause the public.”
They clarified Alamance County’s total number of reported cases is 39. At least 21 of those have recovered and were released from isolation, 18 are “active” and three are hospitalized, officials said.
N.C. DHHS, however, was still reporting an extra 29 cases for the county on Monday afternoon — bringing its total (in error) to 68.
