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Summit County receives hundreds of damaged, unusable coronavirus tests

According to the Akron Beacon Journal, Summit County has received hundreds of damaged coronavirus tests that have been deemed unusable.

Over the course of the past few weeks, Summit County has received two shipments of coronavirus (COVID-19) tests that were damaged and unusable, the Akron Beacon Journal reports.

The two shipments, which were received on April 29 and May 6, included a total of 800 tests, arrived with broken Styrofoam, which couldn’t be used because they had gone out of the allowable temperature range for the kits. The state of Ohio has since replaced all of the tests.

Per the Beacon Journal, the Ohio Department of Health said UPS is working on a damage claim for the shipments.

“Damage does occur during shipping...and we try and take precautions to assure that it doesn’t, but sometimes things do occur, and when they do, we have protocols in place to replace any damaged test kits,” said Jay Carey, external affairs chief for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

The Summit County health department says that it has 2,750 test kits on hand and has sent 320 for processing at labs at Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Summa Health and the Ohio Department of Health. Because labs have limited capability to process tests, the health department isn't collecting samples for tests that can’t be run. 

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