Thousands of North Carolina residents were recently told they had positive coronavirus tests, but that was a mistake.
A text message sent by the Mecklenburg County Health Department on Friday to more than 6,700 individuals in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, said they had tested positive for Covid-19 and more than 500 people were told by county email that they too had been infected with the novel. . Corona virus. But a statement on the county’s website said the results were inaccurate due to a technical error in the health space, the company they use for contact tracing.
A statement on the county’s website said, “As a result of an error during routine maintenance on Friday, county data vendors were sending people false texts and email messages saying they were positive for Covid-19.”
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County manager Dena Diario sent an email to the board of county commissioners Monday afternoon that was posted on the government website.
The mistake affected thousands of residents.
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“Very quickly we started working with the seller to understand the issue and make sure it didn’t continue. Once updated we were told that 6,727 text messages and 541 emails have been sent to individuals who are already in their system. We then worked with the seller to send the corrected text / email to everyone who made a mistake, “stated in the email section.
Initially, the county said the messages were a scam, and wrote in its tweet, “Public Health does not send Covid-19 test results via text message. If you have received any text like the one below, do not click the link and Don’t answer. “
But hours later, the county sent a tweet saying, “These texts were sent by a software provider due to a technical glitch in the software system.”
The county has been using the health space since May to help with contact caching, Diorio said in an email to county commissioners.
“During the overnight maintenance, an issue arose which resulted in a daily COVID-19 alert being sent to individuals who were not to be received. The cause of the issue was identified, and remedied, within 30 minutes. Preliminary report.” Health Space CEO Silas Garris said in a statement.
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Garrison also said in the letter that “we apologize for any alarms that caused citizens not to be sent warnings or surveys.”
The county website said no personal information was tampered with and it took Health Space less than an hour to rectify the issue. It also said that “public health does not text or email positive or negative COVID results to those affected.”
Officials on the county site said anyone who received false information was contacted and told to ignore the results.
