FLORIDA: DeSantis Calls for Investigation into Claims of False Positive Covid Tests

UPDATE: Twitter User who discovered Florida clinics were reporting 100% Positive coronavirus results is no longer on Twitter. See archived Tweet here.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is calling for an investigation into numerous claims that people who did not receive the test for the coronavirus are being informed that they tested positive. “I’ve heard it enough to be concerned about it,” DeSantis told local Fox affiliate’s Robert Guaderrama.

People have been raising the the alarm on social media for several days that for whatever reason, they did not take the test as scheduled and yet were informed that they tested positive. Many of these cases involved people leaving long lines with the intent to get tested at another time. It also begs the question of whether all of the people who test positive for the coronavirus are actually positive.

According to people on social media, this phenomenon is not just happening in Florida.

One local report noted the trend, detailing the story of Mindy Clark, who “had gone to the drive thru testing sight at Manatee Rural Health, but before she was able to get swabbed, she left the line because she realized it was for people with symptoms only.”

Clark then received a call saying she tested positive.

From the article:

“I got a call asking for me, and they told me that I had tested positive. I was like, ‘Positive for what?” Then, the lady said for COVID, and I said, ‘That’s impossible. I never got tested, Ma’am,’” Mindy Clark said. “Clark says if she and many others have been incorrectly identified as positive in the state’s system so easily, how accurate are the numbers that are released daily?”

This comes after the same journalist at Fox 35 reported that numerous clinics reported close to 100 percent positive cases for their coronavirus testing to the Florida Department of Health, but when asked directly, confirmed that the numbers were way lower.

For example:

“The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.”

On July 11, two days before the Fox 35 report, a Twitter user pointed out the trend (archived Tweet here):

This disparity was also pointed out at another local news source, WJHG.com, on July 09, 2020. The report quoted Pamama City-based physician Dr. Jon Ward:

“We’ve got what’s called a denominator problem – the denominator is the number of negative cases, or negative tests, or total tests, and the numerator is positive tests,” he said. “I looked at it and it [local clinic PanCare] showed 280 positives and zero negatives, and that just came up really fishy because I knew a lot of people who had gone to PanCare and tested negative,” said Ward.

And as of July 21, 2020, this is STILL happening:

Here are just some of numerous examples of people making claims that they received “positive” results without getting tested:

Several of the individuals who received “positive” results despite not taking the test have expressed concern with the numbers of cases being reported in general. This author cannot help but wonder if people who HAVE taken the test may have received “false” positives as the number of cases becomes a political battle cry in a swing state with a Republican governor.