Pictured above: Mount Holyoke College’s testing facilities during the fall semester. Photo by Lily Reavis ‘21
Staff Writer
On Oct. 20, Karen Engell, director of Health Services, and Paul S. Kandel, Strategic IT Project Management Lead and COVID-19 Testing and Tracing Project Manager, sent a message to the Mount Holyoke community about two falsely reported COVID-19 tests. Both students involved were told they had tested positive, but had in actuality tested negative for COVID-19. The mistake was made between Oct. 16 and Oct. 17, and the corrected reports of these two tests were issued within 12 hours of the false reports being sent out.
Overall, there were nine other false reports of COVID-19 tests out of 154,000 tests issued within these two days. Elsewhere, three people were told they tested negative when they actually tested positive, and there were four cases at an additional location reporting that four people tested either inconclusive when they really tested negative or vice versa.
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard processes the COVID-19 tests for the College, as well as for other institutions in the Northeast. After a test is administered, it is placed in a tube and labeled with a barcode. When it arrives at the Broad Institute, that barcode is scanned multiple times throughout the process of being tested to make sure it can be tracked efficiently. The two misreported tests were due to human error and are considered “extremely rare,” according to the statement sent out by the College.
“It was a reporting mistake. The corrected results are accurate, and we would not anticipate that anyone would need to be retested as a result,” said David Cameron, director of communications and media Relations at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Tina Arechiga ’23 was one of the students affected by this reporting mistake. She received a call from the College informing her that her last test came back positive and was asked to relocate into an apartment on campus used for students who test positive for the virus.
“I was really anxious and scared when I got the call, just because I've been really careful. I don't go out a lot, and I only hang out with one person here on campus,” Arechiga said. “When the lady [from the Health Center] was going through the steps of what I had to do [for quarantine], I sort of got really nervous and felt a pit in my stomach.”
Right after Arechiga had been relocated to the apartment designated for quarantine, she received an email stating that her results had come back negative, not positive.
“I called the lady [at the Health Center], and she checked the website where they have the results and it had changed somehow. I was confused, and when she said it had also changed for the other person as well, I was like, ‘Well, what’s going on?’” Arechiga said. “So she just asked me to stay in the apartment until they could run the test again.”
After it was confirmed that there had been a reporting mistake from the Broad Institute, and that Arechiga and the other student had actually tested negative, they were free to leave the quarantine apartment and return to their dorms. Overall, according to Arechiga, she had only been displaced for four or five hours. Although the tests only experienced a scanning error and not an actual testing error, it has still set some doubt in test results going forward for some students.
“I felt surprised when I saw that there had been reporting issues with our testing system. I had trusted the reliability of the test [results] so I hadn't even thought about if the [results] were unreliable before,” Emily Jones ’23 said. “Now I do have worries about future test results. I feel that I won't be able to look at test results as being as reliable as I had previously thought.”
Additionally, Jones mentioned the concern that the email sent out to all community members on this issue may not have been seen by everyone. “The email’s subject didn’t directly convey the issue of misreported tests so I worry that some students may have not seen the email because it was not labeled as ‘IMPORTANT’ or ‘URGENT.’”
As one of the community members affected by this reporting error, Arechiga was less worried about future results. “I’m not angry or upset, and I wouldn't say there are any harsh feelings toward [the Broad Institute],” she said. “I feel like it was a one-time thing and I hope it doesn’t happen again. I think, even if there was a resulting error [in the future], I would still treat it as if I was positive.”
Arechiga said she thought Mount Holyoke was doing a good job of following protocol and running tests as quickly but safely as they can during this process.
“Compared to a lot of the colleges that my friends go to, I feel like Mount Holyoke is doing a good job in making sure that people are getting tested regularly, and just having our safety in their concern,” Arechiga said.
In the statement sent out by the College, it was emphasized that this was just a reporting issue, and not a “health and safety issue, nor a testing issue.” Additionally, it was noted that the statement was sent out in order to remain transparent to the Mount Holyoke community about information regarding the ongoing virus.