Ever wonder why your COVID test results haven’t been sent out yet? Some faulty operations and systematic problems during sample collection, testing and result uploading procedures, as well as transport conditions may be causing the delay in nucleic acid test results, according to the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission.
COVID test result delays might be linked to a failure to effectively collect samples due to faulty operations by sampling workers or people doing the tests.
In addition, failure to connect personal information and specimen tube information, mismatch in personal information, misuse of other people’s Yuehesuan (粤核酸) codes and lack of recorded personal ID numbers may slow down test results.
It will also take a longer time to get the test results when vehicles transporting samples are stuck in traffic jams or when vehicles have to pick up samples from more than one place.
Repetitive operations or errors may also happen when workers scan sample tube codes to upload personal information since each lab has to handle over a million samples each day. Damage to codes stuck on specimen tubes might also cause information mismatch.
Moreover, nucleic acid samples from key areas are prioritized for processing over those from other places.
Longer testing time may occur when the extraction of some samples is unsuccessful and needed to be re-extracted, or when nucleic acid amplification is unsuccessful or there is a temporary power outage or equipment failure.
However, the most common problem is the mismatch in personal information or the lack of recorded personal ID card numbers, according to the commission.
Sometimes, systematic errors and wrong personal information may delay the release of the test results.
Also, since the test results are uploaded to the Yuehesuan platform first, and then connected to the Yuekang code, or the Guangdong health code, these platforms may experience a lag when there is a huge volume of data, which further delays the test results.