Dear Editor,

In late September, my wife and I went to the walk-in clinic to have our rapid COVID tests done so that we could attend a concert in Pittsburgh, and we needed to have negative tests for such. We immediately got our results, both of us were negative and we continued with our plans to leave the next morning.

Fast forward to the next day as we are getting ready to walk out the door, I get a phone call from Warren General Hospital telling me that my COVID test is positive. I went into complete panic mode, after all I was feeling fine, and why did my rapid test say negative?

Perhaps I am one of those people with COVID but displaying no symptoms? My mind was racing.

I need to call my children’s schools, countless kids would have to quarantine.

I need to call my children’s soccer team and alert them and their families.

I need to alert all the family members we have been with.

My wife needs to alert her job and coworkers — About fir or so.

I need to alert my job and coworkers – about six.

All the above need to quarantine, correct? How quickly the dominoes fall, right? After all, I am positive but feel great.

I then called my wife and told her we couldn’t go to the concert because my test was positive. But then my wife questioned me on it and said, “Why would the hospital be calling you telling you this?”

Thank God she was on her A game because she said there is no way that is possible. We have the papers right here saying they are negative. So question it. I could hear the lady leafing through the papers and all of a sudden, she exclaims, “Oh my gosh I am so sorry. This was from last year’s test.”

Why are my November results in her hands on this day. And then her exact words were, “I am sorry, forget we had this phone call.” just can’t “forget” we had that phone call. How many other people has this happened to? How does this even happen?

Imagine how this could have turned out. We could have lost hundreds of dollars in our tickets and hotel room, lost wages for both of us as we would have had to quarantine, pull our children out of school and cause a total panic in Warren elementary center as well as Beaty….. As well as our family that we had a picnic with yesterday, not to mention the entire soccer team that my that my daughter played soccer with on Saturday.

I can’t even wrap my head around how anyone is not double checking things and calling people with false information and false panic. How did the paperwork from last year even make it to a desk where a phone call was initiated? I’d like to know. And do you wonder why so many people don’t take COVID seriously? It doesn’t even have to be a false positive – just negligence on behalf of the person relaying the results.

My purpose of letter? Be your own advocate! Don’t accept what you know might be wrong! I understand mistakes get made, but this is unacceptable.

The next time you find out “you have COVID” and are feeling great, make sure it’s your COVID test they are reading and a current one.

Bradley Smith,

Warren