The Minister of Health the Hon. Kim Wilson JP MP today issued the following statement:

"I would like to clarify something which I said at last night's press conference regarding an unfortunate occurrence at the MDL lab last week that led to the sending of negative test emails to a number of people who were in fact COVID-19 positive. To be clear, and the echo the Premier's statement on social media last night, there were no errors with the machinery or the testing process; the testing process did not produce a ‘false negative’ result where the person was positive. The testing process has been the same since April and has been working correctly; it is a process in which I have full confidence. 

“Unfortunately, on these isolated occasions, persons received the wrong email. The cause of these incidents was human error and Dr. Carika Weldon has taken full responsibility for these incidents and has personally called each person who was affected. In short, negative results were incorrectly entered into the system that issues the automated negative emails to persons who have completed tests.  This data entry error resulted in people being called by their doctor the following day stating that they had tested positive when they had earlier received an email that said they were negative. 

“Again, I must reiterate, there was no issue with any lab machine or the method of testing. Dr Weldon and her team have done an amazing job working extremely long hours to ensure that Bermuda is the fifth most tested country in the world."