Ohio Governor Says Supposed Positive Test for Covid-19 Was False

(Bloomberg) -- Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican who has aggressively pushed public-health measures for Ohio, said Thursday night that an initial positive test for Covid-19 was apparently a false result.

DeWine had a taken a so-called antigen test in preparation for greeting President Donald Trump on the tarmac in Cleveland, where the president visited Thursday. But then the governor said later in the day that a second test -- using the PCR or nucleic acid method -- came back negative, as did tests for his wife and staff members.

DeWine's office said in a statement that PCR tests are “known to be extremely sensitive, as well as specific, for the virus.” His office said the PCR test was run twice, returning negative results the first time and also a second time on another diagnostic platform.

The antigen tests that are used as part of White House protocols -- and that returned DeWine's positive result -- are sometimes referred to as rapid-result tests. They “represent an exciting new technology to reduce the cost and improve the turnaround time for Covid-19 testing, but they are quite new, and we do not have much experience with them here in Ohio,” according to the statement from the governor's office. “We will be working with the manufacturer to have a better understanding of how the discrepancy between these two tests could have occurred.”

DeWine's announcement earlier Thursday had attracted national attention because his aggressive push of public health measures despite Trump's opposition is rare among Republican governors.

The testing imbroglio comes after months of controversy in Ohio. DeWine's earlier lockdown orders set off furious protests at the capital in Columbus. He mandated last month that masks be worn in public statewide by those 10 and older, with exceptions including people with a medical condition or playing sports.

Last month, Oklahoma's Kevin Stitt became the nation's first governor to test positive for the coronavirus after weeks of resisting a statewide mask mandate. U.S. senators, members of the House of Representative and White House staffers have also contracted the infection that has killed more than 160,000 Americans so far.

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