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Laboratories advertising rapid PCR tests for covid-19 throughout New York City and State are taking up to 11 days to provide results, so long that the New York City District Attorney on Tuesday ordered them to stop issuing misleading advertisements promising results in 24 to 48 hours.
This is the fifth time that U.S. Attorney Letitia James has sent warning messages to different companies that perform rapid tests, having received complaints that two of them—EZ Test NY and Keep Health Safe—are taking seven days, and in some cases as long as 11 days, to deliver test results.
James reminds them that this amounts to making “false promises that they have no means of keeping” at a time when positivity rates (on tests) are skyrocketing because of the omicron and holiday gatherings.
In the same letter made public by her office, the prosecutor encourages citizens to report these delays to the Fraud and Consumer Protection Office telephone number.
The positivity rate in New York has exceeded 20% in the last seven days, while the number of tests performed is higher than ever: 51,698 positives were reported yesterday out of 223,153 tests registered, but the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, assures that these figures should be much higher because not all home tests are collected.
Indeed, the tests that at the beginning of December had a delay of a few hours until the results were delivered began to show delays as the Christmas holidays approached and the lines at the mobile covid booths became longer and longer at all hours of the day and night.
The prosecutor began sending these warning letters to companies on December 21 as the number of complaints of delays increased, and since that date has already warned six companies that they must explain to their customers what “they can realistically expect with regard to their results.”
