False negative Covid test is a 'one-off' error

It said it was the first and only error of its type to happen so far from about 140,000 tests.

The test related to a local man who had spent a long weekend in the UK.

The man, who has asked to remain anonymous, returned to the island the day before people had to buy lateral flow tests on arrival, but he had bought some at Boots in the UK before he left. He used them for a few days and all were negative.

But later that week he began to feel unwell and took a day off work with a migraine on a Friday.

The next day he did another lateral flow test which came back negative, but he called the Covid helpline and was tested on Sunday.

Although he felt better that day, he went for the test and was confirmed negative by text that evening.

As a result, he returned to work on Monday, but 90 minutes after the start of the day he got a call to say there had been an error and he had tested positive.

‘I had to leave the office immediately and then they had to contact trace everyone at my work,’ he said.

The floor of the building was cleared and deep cleaned and some 15 staff had to go home and isolate.

Under normal circumstances, the computer in the laboratory would send test results to the Covid-19 database.

If negative a text is sent automatically to an individual.

If the result is positive, a ‘four eyes’ check is in place where the lab contacts Public Health by telephone.

‘However, it seems in this case, the result was received late in the evening and the call wasn’t made to Public Health until the next morning,’ said a spokeswoman for Health and Social Care.

‘The individual, therefore, had a period of around 12 hours where he had the wrong result.

‘As soon as we were aware of the error, we contacted the individual concerned immediately.’

Laboratory staff had never seen this error before, and it has not happened since.

While not able to comment about the response of the man’s employer, the spokeswoman said that Public Health would ask individuals to go home or request a deep clean of premises only in very specific circumstances, including where more than one positive case is found in a particular workplace.