Qantas changes lab used to process Covid tests on Australians on India repatriation flight

Qantas will use a different laboratory to screen passengers flying from India to Australia after some of the people stopped from boarding a repatriation flight out of the country later tested negative for Covid-19. But despite a review revealing “issues” with the laboratory used to process the tests, the airline has stood by the initial results that saw nearly half of the 150 people who had been scheduled to board the first repatriation flight out of Covid-ravaged India denied entry to the flight. Forty-two people booked on the first repatriation flight, which landed in Darwin on Saturday, tested positive either in PCR tests in the days prior to departure or rapid antigen tests at the gate. Another 30 were barred as their close contacts. After reports that a handful of people who had been blocked from boarding the flight had later tested negative for the virus, Qantas initiated a review that included re-running all of the positive test results “under additional medical supervision”. The company said late Tuesday that the results had all come back positive, including some “weak positives that may have been interpreted as negative results by other laboratories”.<br/>