The COVID-19 test for a resident of Providence Manor who launched outbreak protocols at the long-term care facility was determined to be a false positive on Friday, according to Providence Care.
The outbreak, initially called on Monday, is officially over as of Friday.
The resident initially tested positive after being tested at a public health assessment centre over the weekend. That resident was transferred to hospital, where they were tested twice for the disease, and twice those tests came back negative.
The initial results of the first test, it turns out, resulted in a a “weak positive” — meaning, according to KFL&A Public Health, that the patient just barely made it past the threshold for a positive result.
The weak positive, along with the subsequent negative tests, prompted public health and Providence Care to launch an investigation into the case, and it has since been determined the first results were a false positive.
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“No test is perfect and with the low number of true COVID-19 cases in the population, the proportion and likelihood of false positive results increase,” says Dr. Kieran Moore, medical officer of health at KFL&A Public Health.
“The resident’s first COVID-19 was a weak positive. A weak positive result on a screening test requires clinical correlations to make a final diagnosis for any disease.”
Residents from two units at the long-term care facility, along with 70 staff members at the home, were all tested for the disease during the investigation phase. None of those tests came back positive.
“Our entire organization breathed a collective sigh of relief when all the COVID-19 test results came back negative,” says Cathy Szabo, Providence Care president and CEO. “I’m so proud of the way our teams leaped into action, especially Dr. Evans and our Infection Prevention and Control teams. We were able to implement outbreak measures immediately to protect our residents, and identified which staff needed to be tested and got them to a testing centre right away.”
The resident’s symptoms have since resolved, and they are doing well, Providence Care says, but they remain in hospital. Providence Care, KFL&A Public Health and Ontario Health are working to see when the resident can return to Providence Manor.
The news also brings the region’s total COVID-19 cases down from 59 to 58.
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