'Incredibly Disappointing': Thousands Of Cambridge Students Will Not Receive Result Of COVID Test
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) - The families of 3500 students in Cambridge who stood in the cold to receive a PCR test Monday learned that the majority of their results are unavailable.
"The vast majority of results will not be available due to a variety of factors at the lab," the District wrote in a press release that came out Thursday.
Cambridge canceled school Monday and Tuesday to allow students to participate in pooled and individual PCR testing. On Wednesday, most of the results were still unavailable.
"This is incredibly disappointing to everyone involved, especially the many families and students who changed work and childcare plans at the last minute and stood in long lines to get tested," said Interim Superintendent Victoria Greer. "The labs have taken full responsibility, and, with the support of the state, CIC Health is providing additional testing teams to conduct rapid tests for us today."
CIC Health is the vendor that administers COVID tests in Cambridge. Then, CIC delivers the samples to the lab at the Broad Institute.
In a statement, CIC's Chief Marketing and Resource Officer Rodrigo Martinez said that, "end-to-end turn-around times, measured from the time a sample is collected to when there's a result, have temporarily increased," due to a large increase in positive results and staffing issues.
The Broad Institute maintains that its processing times are averaging 24 to 26 hours and have only increased slightly recently.
Of the students who did receive results, three received news of individual positive results. There were 193 Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students identified as members of a positive pool.