Covid testing provider, with one location in Rochester, sued by Minnesota AG
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed a lawsuit against a Covid-19 testing provider, alleging it repeatedly failed to deliver results, sent results later than advertised, or sent false results to customers.
The defendant, known as the Center for Covid Control, has 275 sites across the country, including one in Rochester at 1218 Seventh Street NW.
In a news release this week, Ellison said his office has received “numerous complaints from Minnesotans who submitted Covid-19 tests at pop-up sites around the state operated by Center for Covid Control who reported never receiving their test results from the company’s associated lab, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, despite waiting for weeks or more.”
The lawsuit against the Illinois-based companies alleges that while the company could initially handle the volume of tests, its processing center failed to expand as the company opened additional testing sites.
The announcement from the AG goes on to add:
The results, as one former employee described, were chaos, with received samples being stuffed into trash bags strewn across the office floor. Former employees recounted finding samples in bags that were well over 48 hours old, being instructed by management to falsify dates of receipt, and being instructed to lie to consumers about their tests being inconclusive or negative when, in fact, the sample had not been tested.
Ellison said his office filed the lawsuit to hold the companies accountable for “deceiving Minnesotans and undermining the public’s trust in testing.”
Meanwhile, the two companies behind the Center for Covid Control also face an investigation in their home state Illinois. A Chicago news site reports that the company has been paid over $124 million for testing from the federal government since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a recent announcement, the Center for Covid Control said it would be pausing further testing until Jan. 22 due to high demand brought on by the omicron surge. It did not address the pending litigation.
Cover photo: File / Licensed via Canva
