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SACRAMENTO – Today, Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) responded to scathing whistleblower reports coming out of a state-funded COVID-19 testing facility. Yesterday, CBS13 Sacramento reported that the lab was not meeting their obligated demand and mismanaging specimen samples. CBS13’s investigation uncovered thousands of inconclusive COVID-19 test results, the lab is processing 80,000 fewer tests a day than they are paid to, and repeated errors that impact patient results such as swapped samples, contamination, and uncertified lab techs both sleeping and on their phones.
Senator Shannon Grove released the following statement:
“Again and again, Governor Gavin Newsom fails Californians. First, it was a failed billion-dollar mask contract with a company in China followed by the state paying out billions in fraudulent unemployment benefits including to prisoners and death-row inmates. Then, it was an illegal $35 million voter outreach contract issued to a partisan firm, and now, it’s over a billion dollars being thrown away for inaccurate and inefficient COVID-19 testing.
“These whistleblower allegations reveal more than just a dangerously inaccurate testing program; they also expose the misuse of taxpayer dollars and broken trust within the state government. The legislature must provide oversight and accountability over this contract, and the one-man rule in this state must end.”