NEW YORK – The Florida Department of Health and Florida Division of Emergency Management said on Tuesday that they are no longer using Quest Diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2 testing following Quest's failure to report to the state roughly 75,000 SARS-CoV-2 test results in a timely manner.
According to the state, the unreported tests date as far back as April 2020. Quest said that while these results were not reported to Florida authorities as required, all positive test results were reported to patients.
"The law requires all COVID-19 results to be reported to DOH in a timely manner. To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a statement. "I believe that Quest has abdicated their ability to perform a testing function in Florida that the people can be confident in. As such I am directing all executive agencies to sever their COVID-19 testing relationships with Quest effective immediately."
In a statement, Quest attributed the unreported tests to a "technical issue."
"We apologize for this matter and regret the challenge it poses for public health authorities in Florida," the company said. "The issue has since been resolved. Importantly, the issue did not affect or delay reporting of test results to providers and patients."
Quest has performed roughly 1.4 million SARS-CoV-2 tests in Florida.
Shares of the clinical lab giant were down around 2 percent at $108.65 on the New York Stock Exchange in Tuesday afternoon trading.