The Ministry of Health is this evening telling about 6000 people who it previously told had Covid-19 that they don’t have the coronavirus after all.
This follows a computer glitch in the weekend. An uploading error on Friday afternoon and into Saturday morning meant approximately 6000 people were sent a repeat text messages telling them that they had returned a positive Covid-19 test and needed to isolate.
These personalised texts were received by people who tested positive within the past 10 days duplicating advice they had already received.
The duplicate text again told the recipient they’d tested positive for Covid-19 and gave the standard advice about isolating, asking them to fill in the contact tracing form and where to find information, support, and healthcare advice.
The ministry’s contact tracing team discovered the glitch early on Saturday morning and the error was fixed then.
The ministry has sent texts to all those affected people to clarify the error, apologise and provide a phone number should they require further information or support.
The phone line will be available this evening until 9pm and again from tomorrow morning.