![]() The Chicago-based company was aggressively pursuing government customers in Nevada. Both had recently hired the same company to conduct their testing: Northshore Clinical Labs. The university and school district had something in common. Kerwin investigated and learned the University of Nevada Reno campus was seeing similarly conflicting results. But before a contact tracer could call, parents would learn from the testing company that their children’s PCR tests, typically the gold standard of COVID-19 testing, were negative, even for students with symptoms. Athletes would test positive on the rapid test. Heather Kerwin, epidemiology program manager for the Washoe County Health District (Emily Najera for ProPublica)Ī pattern emerged. “These parents were pretty adamant that their kid was not a case and that they could play,” said Heather Kerwin, epidemiology program manager for the Washoe County Health District. ![]() But for some reason, parents were repeatedly disputing that their children had the virus. Parents of students who tested positive on the rapid tests would get phone calls from the health district.īecause families already knew about positive rapid results, the phone calls should have been a routine follow-up to start tracking anyone who had had contact with the infected person. A nasal swab for an on-site antigen test produced rapid results in 15 minutes a second swab was sent to an out-of-state laboratory for a more sensitive PCR test. Last winter’s sports season had just begun, and the epidemiology staff at Nevada’s second-largest health district were busy calling the parents of high school athletes who’d tested positive for COVID-19.Ī state mandate required unvaccinated or traveling athletes to get tested weekly. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive their stories in your inbox every week. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |