Weizmann Institute denies it was behind virus test errors, raps Health Ministry

The Weizmann Institute of Science on Saturday railed against the Health Ministry after top officials accused the public research university in Rehovot of botching coronavirus tests that produced false positives for 19 nursing home residents in Ashdod and Ashkelon.

In a statement, Weizmann Institute said it did not carry out most of the relevant tests, and asserted that the handful that it did were interpreted by the Health Ministry as positive only to be on the safe side.

“The claim that the cause of the borderline cases interpreted as positive was an infection [identified] in the lab has been thoroughly investigated by us and the Health Ministry and found to be completely false,” it said. “According to a Health Ministry report, the origin is in the interpretation of the results, rather than their quality.”

Denouncing “rumors, claims and briefings by various parties,” the statement said that “shirking responsibility and looking for scapegoats are foreign to the fields of science and medicine.”

The institute called on the Health Ministry to continue their work together “in an honest and fair fashion in the national struggle with the coronavirus, for the benefit and well-being of all Israelis.”

In a response, the Health Ministry said “it works together with the Weizmann Institute in full cooperation and partnership for the sake of success in the joint national mission.”

Due to the errors all coronavirus tests at the institute were halted on Saturday, the Ynet news website reported.

The ministry initially said 14 results were believed to have been false positives with another 29 suspect cases. On Sunday it said its probe had found that 19 false positives were issued.

Sources in the Weizmann Institute indicated they believed Health Ministry deputy-director general Itamar Grotto was behind the “briefings” to media claiming errors were made at Weizmann, Ynet said, adding that he has for several weeks been at the forefront of ministry objections to the institute carrying out virus tests.

Grotto has reportedly warned the Knesset coronavirus committee that if the Weizmann institute handles tests there is a risk that some of the results will be erroneous. A key stumbling block, Health Ministry officials claim, is in synchronizing the Weizmann computer system with systems used in other laboratories at hospitals, health care providers, and the ministry itself, Ynet reported.

Channel 13 news reported the virus test errors on Friday. Officials in the ministry told the network that elderly patients whose tests were later found to have been false positives were then isolated in hospitals to reduce the possibility of them becoming infected, while a decision was made about their future care.

Nine of the patients confirmed to not have COVID-19 were hospitalized at Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod and the rest at Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon and Kaplan hospital in Rehovot.

They had been in special quarantined wards for coronavirus patients alongside confirmed carriers.

The incident cast doubts on test results for residents of other nursing homes, which were now also reexamining the results, with many demanding a second test.

Nearly 40 percent of the COVID-19 fatalities in Israel have been residents of elderly living centers, according to a Channel 13 news calculation, with the virus spreading fast through some facilities.

Increased testing is seen as vital to being able to slowly reopen the economy and ease social distancing restrictions on the population.

The coronavirus death toll in Israel rose to 171 on Sunday and the country’s infection figures rose by 106 since Saturday evening to 13,362, according to Health Ministry figures.

There were 156 patients in serious condition with 109 of those on ventilators, continuing what appeared to be a downward trend.

The number of people in moderate condition was 140, while 3,564 have recovered.